HTTYD: Resurrection
by KashimusPrime
Summary: Hiccup never thought of himself as a religious man, yet he had respect for the gods. Days after having defeated his biggest foe, his world is turned upside down when he learns the truth about his identity. And when faced with an even deadlier threat, he has only one choice to save those he loves: To embrace his Asgardian heritage. This is a crossover with Httyd and Avengers.
1. Heroes are made by the path they choose

_It is said that you do not choose your destiny. You cannot run from it or avoid it. You must not fear your destiny. You should embrace it, accept it, and respect it. For it may be a blessing in disguise that brings out the best within you, and allows you to blossom your true potential. So when destiny comes baring down your door, remember; Do not be afraid._

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Hiccup looked around the village of Berk from his vantage on Toothless' back. Only the day before, Drago had been defeated, and the tribe was still celebrating victory. But that didn't change the fact that they had a _lot_ of work to do; houses needed to be rebuilt, the blasted-off tusk from the Bewilderbeast needed to be removed from the harbor, and the ice needed to be cleaned up as well. At first, some had suggested to simply let it melt, but it quickly became clear that that wasn't an option; it wasn't melting evenly, and they couldn't risk shifting ice crushing more houses. But, for all the damage, it was still a great victory, and his people were singing as they worked, bringing in loads of supplies via dragon, and carrying out debris the same way. A few of the artisans had already approached him on the idea for a memorial for his father, carved from the rock of the island itself. Toothless warbled and smacked him with an ear flap. "Sorry, Toothless. Woolgathering." Toothless rolled his head and, with his tongue sticking out in focus, braked to bring in the supplies to the work gang below.

"That's it! Perfect!" one of the workers shouted from below; they steadied the cargo and unloaded it before Toothless took flight again and the work gang got back to their repairs.

Toothless landed on one of the cliffs overlooking the village. Dismounting, Hiccup smiled and looked around him. Things were a bit trampled, busted, and covered in ice, but his tribe showed perseverance; they would prove to their enemies that they would not break.

"Hiccup!" Valka's voice came from behind and Hiccup turned to see his mother, his eyes squinted ever so slightly as a smile crossed his lips.

"How's everything at the forge?" Hiccup asked, as he unhitched the harness from the palette and bent to give Toothless a short rubdown as a thank you for all the work his best bud had been doing.

"Oh, it's fine, Hiccup. Everything is fine there." she gave him an odd look, cocking her head as if in thought. "Hiccup, there's something I need to talk to you about." she threw a glance at the villagers and dragons all around them, and then added, "Alone? Away from the others? It's too crowded here." she spoke softly. Her demeanor subdued, as if she was ashamed.

Well, there was plenty of _that_ to go around.

"Sure, Mom," Hiccup said, and mounted up. Following Valka and Cloudjumper, they went out into the sea stack maze for some distance.

They landed on one of the taller sea stacks, and Valka dismounted from Cloudjumper's back. She walked over to the edge of the sea stack and gazed at Berk in the distance. Hiccup followed suit and stood next to her. She was standing up straighter than she had before, and he straightened to match her.

"It's amazing how much these creatures can do," Valka mused, watching as a small squad of riders flew in the distance, carrying in more supplies to aid with Berk's rebuilding.

Smiling proudly, Hiccup took in a deep lungful of the late afternoon air and replied, "They really are amazing, Mom."

Then her words hit him. "Wait, 'creatures'? That doesn't sound like you." She didn't say anything, and he continued, "Well, I guess they are... but that's not the word I'd use. It sounds like the sort of thinking that Drago would use. 'Creature'. 'Monster'. 'Thing.' Is that what you meant to point out? Because, yeah, they are amazing beings, and you and I both know how they're feared and misunderstood." He tuned to look at her. "You were wrong, Mom. You shouldn't have hid away for all those years. You could have been changing people's minds all that time, helping end the fear of them."

Valka looked to Hiccup, her expression inscrutable. "And what if we _can't_ change their minds?" Valka asked.

Hiccup went to open his mouth to say something in response, but the thought of what happened, the memory of having lost his father, quickly stopped his tongue. _A man who kills without reason cannot be reasoned with._ Hiccup shied away from the memory. His father had been right, and his shoulders hunched in pain.

Valka took Hiccup's chin in her hands. "It's in human nature to fear what they do not understand," Valka explained. "You've done your best, but not everyone will be persuaded in the end. You had some success with your father-more than I would have ever credited him-but with others..." She trailed off, and looked pointedly at the ice-covered village in the distance.

Hiccup winced and nodded, taking her meaning.

After a while, Valka spoke again. "Things have changed. You've grown so much since that night I abandoned you. You were just a babe, and now look at you."

Hiccup nodded. "Yeah... gods, they have." He touched his forehead. Even though it had been cleaned off, he could still feel Gothi's finger touching his brow, painting the sigil of the chief there. Now, he was wearing his father's fur cloak, cloak pins and belt, and was trying not to feel like an imposter, a literal child play-acting in his father's clothes.

Then another thought occurred to him, and Hiccup grimaced. "I'm sorry, Mom… I can't imagine that it's easy for you to see me in Dad's stuff-"

"No, not that," Valka interrupted him. "You've _changed._" She reached over and touched the belt buckle, and for a moment, Hiccup felt something-like the air was charged with lightning, like being around the Skrill...

And then it was back to normal.

"What was _that_?" he asked, blinking.

Valka didn't say anything, but he would have sworn that, for a moment, she looked confused... followed by an uncharacteristic cruel curl of her lips. But it was just for a moment, and then she was shaking her head and rubbing her temples. Then she turned to him.

"Son... what would you give to be able to have done _more?"_

"What are you talking about?" Hiccup cocked a brow.

"Have you wondered if there was more you could have done?" Valka asked, looking Hiccup over.

"Of course I have!" he blurted, his heart spasming in pain. "I could have listened to Dad, I could have been more careful, I could have stopped Drago from ordering the Bewilderbeast to take control of Toothless, I could have... I could have _dodged._ But... I didn't. And... and my best friend got his mind violated and Dad... Dad died."

There was a pained warble at his side. Hiccup looked, to see Toothless, whose expression of guilt was plain on his face.

Hiccup reached over and gently rubbed Toothless' head. The Night Fury leaned up against him supportively and rumbled.

"But you managed to keep Toothless from firing at you for quite a while," Valka said. Her tone... odd.

Hiccup took a deep breath. "I felt _something_, a connection, a spark..." He sighed. "I thought, maybe, just _maybe,_ that it was the gods telling me that I could reach Toothless, that I could have helped him if I just tried hard enough," Hiccup clutched his hands in the air as he pulled away from Toothless, but then they fell back to his side. "But Dad…" Hiccup felt a sob rushing to the surface. He steeled himself, trying to push away the horrible memory.

"But then your father interrupted, breaking your concentration."

"I... Mom!" Hiccup protested, shocked. "How can you _say_ that? He saved me. You were _there!"_

"You _were_ asserting control; that was what kept him from firing at you for so long," Valka gestured to Toothless who flinched as she pointed at him. "But then Stoick knocked you aside, distracted you, and Toothless fired-and it got him killed."

Hiccup looked back at her, the sob he felt suddenly vanishing as confusion-and a tinge of anger-replaced it. What on Midgard...?

"That spark you felt... that _wasn't _the gods," Valka said, placing her hand on Hiccup's shoulder. "You have a gift, Hiccup. A gift you need to learn to control,"

"Gift?" Hiccup repeated. He gave her a dubious glare, his anger still flickering. Her tone was shifting in a way that confused him.

"I can show you how." Valka cupped Hiccup's cheek, staring deep into his eyes.

"I don't... understand. Mom, what are you talking about? Gift? What gift?" Hiccup asked, baffled.

Valka chuckled softly, apparently amused with Hiccup's confusion. "We can only do so much on our own," she approached Toothless and caressed him. Toothless hesitated at first, but melted under her gentle touch and gurgled happily. He rubbed up against her. "Once you learn to harness that gift, we can show the world what dragons can do,"

Hiccup looked at Valka before sharing a puzzled look with Toothless. Toothless gurgled and tilted his head, gesticulating his own confusion.

"This gift... did Dad have it too?" Hiccup asked.

"Your father was as mortal as they come. His strength came from another source," Valka said, tapping the buckle Hiccup now wore.

Hiccup looked down at the buckle. It looked like an ordinary buckle that anyone else might wear. "I don't understand. What do you mean 'mortal'?"

"I mean exactly what it sounds like, son. Your father was... well, only human. You... and I... _aren't._ But that..." she motioned to the belt buckle, "was a gift from my father to Stoick when I first came here. It blessed him, and tied me to him..." She inhaled sharply. "And now that tie is broken." She closed her eyes and a smile-a frightening smile-crossed her lips. "At last."

"I... I don't understand. Are you saying that _Dad's belt buckle_ was enchanted somehow?" Hiccup asked. "What, like _megingjörð_?" he joked, referring to Thor's Belt.

"Yes. It is exactly like the Belt of Power, forged by the dwarves from the light of a dying star," she said. "In fact, if I recall... _correctly,_" she said with a sound of effort, "it _is_ the Belt."

Hiccup looked at his mother and felt his heart melt in sadness. "Mom."

"Yes, my son?"

"Mom... you've just had a tremendous shock. Your life of the last twenty years is gone, your husband died... you're not-"

She laughed. "Oh, you think I've gone insane, haven't you?"

Hiccup grimaced and tried to make it a smile. "I wasn't going to _say_ it, but..."

"My dearest son... I can guarantee you that there is no fog of misunderstanding falling across my mind. In fact..." she spread her arms and turned several times, her smile growing frenetic, "it is _quite_ the opposite."

Hiccup swallowed. One parent dead... the other lost and growing insane...

Best to play along until he could get Gothi to help her. He couldn't bear to lose her too. Not so soon after having found her.

"So... you're saying my... Dad's belt was the Belt of Power, forged by the dwarves, enchanted to double his strength?" Hiccup asked carefully.

"Exactly." She smiled at him. "In fact... if I recall what Gobber told me, you're a smith of uncommon skill. Can you identify what metal it is?"

Hiccup, still playing along, his heart breaking at the sight of his mother's descent into madness from grief, shrugged and removed the belt. Holding it up to his eye, he examined it closely.

And frowned.

"That's... not iron. Or bronze. Or steel..."

"It is _uru,_ son. Forged from the heart of a dying star," Valka said, "enchanted by the great dwarven smith Eitri... altered by my father to imprison me."

Hiccup blinked and wordlessly put the belt back on. He couldn't identify the metal, sure... but that didn't mean that his mother's claims were true.

As the belt slipped back around his waist, Hiccup stared down at it. He couldn't identify the metal... and there had been that weird energy before... just before his mother's mind had started to break.

"I can show you how to use it. Use it in ways that your father never knew how to," Valka said, and spoke a word.

Hiccup gasped as energy seemed to _flow_ into him from the belt.

"What the Hel?" he managed to breath out after a moment, his voice ragged. "What was that?"

"The belt is attuned to you now. You have the strength of a jotunn... for starters." Valka smiled at him. "I will show you how to use it, how to channel yourself through it... and together, we shall _rule!"_

At those words, Hiccup jumped back-and found that he'd somehow jumped half the width of the sea stack. Toothless made a shocked noise and bounded over to him. "Mom! You're... you're not well! Look, something... something bad is happening to you! You're... you're acting completely different! It's like you're a whole other person all of a sudden!"

Valka looked at him and sighed. "Well, I suppose that you _did_ get my intelligence. Yes, I _am_ a 'whole other person'. 'Valka' was a disguise. A mask. Something to chain me and hopefully reform me, tied to your father... by _my_ father. With his death... it's fading. And I'm myself once again."

Hiccup continued to back away, Toothless at his side. "So... who the Hel are you, then?"

Valka's grin grew bloodthirsty. "Who the Hel. Oh, yes. Who the Hel indeed..." Her grin widened even further and she pushed her hands to her head as if she was going to rub her temples in frustration. "Let's see if this works..."

She ran her hands through her hair, and Hiccup could _see_ the mask fall off and fade. His mother's auburn hair darkened... and then transformed into a crown of black spikes. Her leathers and furs wavered and shifted from the greens and blues to become darker and more form-fitting.

Her hand produced a blade from... _nowhere_, and she held it like greeting an old friend... not helped by her next words. "Hello darling! Oh, how I _missed _you!" she said, and while she was still the same woman, with the same voice... she _wasn't_ Valka, not in her posture or her tone. Whereas Valka had been friendly, in a feral manner, her voice slightly hesitant, as if she'd forgotten how to make words, the woman in front of him was aggressive, arrogant, and spoke with incredible certainty and poise.

Hiccup sucked in air from shock and fell back. "Y-you're…" Hiccup trailed off and scooted away in panic.

"That's right. Mommy dearest is Hela, the goddess of Death, Odin's firstborn, commander of the legions of Asgard, and the rightful heir to the throne," she flourished her hands and gave him a curt bow.

"What, but, how… Did, did Dad k-know about this?" Hiccup stammered, his panic made it harder for him to think clearly.

"Your father died never knowing the truth about who I am," Valka... _Hela_ said with a nonchalant shrug. "Rather by design, really. My prison was tied to his life, courtesy of your grandfather. He made me into someone I _wasn't,_ all in the hope of changing me." She shrugged again. "Didn't work."

Hiccup looked over to Toothless. How much of all of this his bud understood, Hiccup had no idea, but there was no question that Toothless saw his _mother_ as... as a threat. His eyes were narrowing and his body was curled and tense, ready to pounce and put himself in between Hiccup and... Hela. "Shh, Toothless, bud, it's okay…" Hiccup grabbed a hold of Toothless' harness, pulled himself back to his feet, and propped himself up against Toothless.

"It's a lot to absorb in such a short moment. But you will come to accept it, as we conquer the Nine Realms and then add to them," Hela proposed. "All mortals care about is acknowledgement, to be something _more _than mere mice running around trying to survive from day to day." She motioned to the flock of dragons flying over Berk. "You will be a great herald, my son. Commanding the dragon legion that we have amassed. And the world will learn what true fear is," Hela stepped towards Hiccup but stopped, hearing Toothless' growl intensify into a snarl. Hela shot Toothless an annoyed glare.

"Good dragons under the control of bad people do bad things. _You_ told me this once before, and you were right. Dragons are not weapons! They can be our friends," Hiccup reached out to Toothless, laying a calming hand on the Night Fury at his side.

Hela snorted. "That wasn't me. That was a mold my father was trying to force me into. 'Valka' was a weak-minded pacifist hypocrite without the will to commit to her own beliefs. 'Don't kill dragons'... but don't act to save them when her own family was slaughtering them. 'Love your husband'... don't talk to him for twenty years, without even sending a message to him. I was _sickened_ by just how weak she was, prowling around in the back of her mind. She took the _easy_ path, avoiding pain." Hela pulled another sword from nowhere. "I embrace it." She stepped forward. "You are ruled by sentiment, just as she was. This weakens you. Your blood is the blood of Asgard, however weakened by Midgardian pollution. And it is the _calling _of Asgard to rule over those weaker than us." She pointed the blade at him. "So you can embrace that... or I can carve that Midgardian weakness out directly. Your choice."

Hiccup set his jaw. "'A chief protects his own,'" he quoted. His brow furrowed as anger replaced confusion, and he drew and ignited his blade. Toothless glared at Hela and he gave her a snort of disapproval.

"You're overconfident. I like that - but it will get you killed," Hela stated, sounding more amused than anything else.

"I've faced worse and still managed. You're not _nearly_ as scary as a certain giant green dragon. And we beat her," Hiccup said.

Hela laughed, amused. "The only reason you've survived this long is because you're Asgardian. You would have been dead years ago if it weren't for your royal blood." She shrugged. "But if it's an impression I need to be making..." She flicked her hand and Hiccup suddenly screamed as a line of hot fire grazed his cheek, a blade moving almost faster than he could have seen flicked from her hand and slicing open his face. He reached up and touched the gash, to find the wound already scabbing over.

"That would be the Belt," Hela said conversationally. "And that's just one of the lesser powers at its disposal." She had another blade in hand-and then blinked as Toothless shot it out of her hand with a massive blast of fire.

Hiccup gritted his teeth and rushed her before she could recover, his feet tearing up the grass, his speed faster than he'd ever managed before. But Hela rolled her eyes, feinted, and casually dodged, using his own momentum to send him sprawling in the grass. Before he could recover, she snatched him by his wild hair and pulled him up against her. Hiccup cried out.

"You still think you can defeat me?" Hela yanked his head back. With his neck exposed, she put her blade against his throat. It dug into his skin, and he hissed in pain as he could feel his pulse pounding only a finger width away from the edge of the blade, a trickle of blood flowing down towards the base of his neck.

Toothless shrieked at the sight of Hiccup's spilled blood and bounded at Hela... but she stretched her other hand out as he neared and he yielded.

"No," Hiccup begged, watching her drop Toothless with a disarming gesture. Toothless went down in a dreamlike state. Cloudjumper approached Toothless, inspecting him.

"Oh, don't worry about your pet. He's only unconscious," Hela promised. "I'd kill him, but he's _useful,_ as he just demonstrated_."_

"He's not my pet!" Hiccup struggled against Hela, but the cold metal against his throat held him in place as he felt it cut his flesh. His eyes darted around, trying to find something to help him out of his predicament.

That arrived in a storm of flapping wings.

"Hiccup!" came Astrid's sudden call. Hiccup felt Hela tense at Astrid's arrival, and acted purely on instinct. Shifting his weight in her hold, he managed to jostle Hela's aim just as she threw her blade at the newcomers.

"We saw the fire-blast, are you-woah!" Stormfly balked and banked as the sword missed her by mere inches, making Astrid shout in surprise.

He sagged in relief as he saw the blade sailing off into the distance, a motion that made the blade at his neck cut deeper, but he couldn't care less.

"Does anyone know the meaning of the word _privacy_ around here?" Hela shouted in frustration.

"Who the Hel is that!?" Snotlout shouted in disbelief as they banked around the sea-stack.

"Hel indeed," Hela said with a gyration of her hips and turned to Cloudjumper. "Fine. This will make for a good test of your abilities. Get rid of them," she commanded.

"No, don't!" Hiccup pleaded. Cloudjumper pulled away from Toothless and looked towards the riders that surrounded them. His stare was vacant, his pupils turned to slits. Then he suddenly took off and flew directly at the dragons, chasing after them as their riders made them dodge. Within seconds, he'd cleared the air for his master.

"That's much better." Hela rolled her neck, popping her joints. She watched with a satisfied grin as the riders scattered like seabirds.

Hiccup couldn't move, feeling the blade pressed against his neck. And with Toothless temporarily out, all he could do was watch, his heart pounding in fear, as Cloudjumper launched an assault on his friends, attacking anyone who got too close to them.

Relieved, Hiccup noticed how they effectively dodged Cloudjumper's attacks after the first moment's surprise. He was glad that they wouldn't hurt one of their own, but had to look away as the dragon he'd come to know as a gentle creature tried to kill his friends.

But Hela pulled on his scalp, forcing him to watch his friends in aerial combat. "Isn't it glorious?" she purred in his ear as they watched her pawn chase after his friends.

"They're so easy to command. Imagine the destruction they could bring to Asgard! I will be on the throne by sundown, and you, you my son..." she kicked Inferno's blade away from them, "if you can forge _that_ with these primitive tools here on Midgard, then imagine what weapons you will be able to make for me when I appoint you as Eitri's master!" she laughed with excitement.

Hiccup looked on, watching helplessly as his friends dodged to avoid Cloudjumper's attacks. He could see a plan forming as they assumed formation-something he had taught them.

His friends began to distract Cloudjumper, luring the dragon away from Hela and putting on a distracting aerial display to pull his attention away from their strategy, weaving in and out through the sea stacks, mist and fog-until they flew through a blanket of clouds and emerged on the other side.

Hiccup smiled; there were only five dragons, not six.

He looked out of the corner of his eye at Hela, hoping she was fooled by the disappearing act. Hiccup looked up, wondering just where the sixth rider was hiding as he scanned the clouds.

His question was answered as there was an abrupt blast of Nadder fire hurtling towards them out of the cloud. Hela reflexively threw the blade in her hand-pulling it away from Hiccup's neck and he immediately saw his chance.

Shoving Hela with his elbow, he disrupted her aim once more. Then he dropped and rolled, grabbing Inferno from where it lay on the ground, ignited it, and lunged at Hela without a second's hesitation. She raised her arm to block, and there was a shock that travelled up Hiccup's arm as he connected, the smell of burning hair and blood on the wind as the fiery edge sizzled with his mother's blood.

There was a sudden draconic roar, and Hela bellowed in response. Cloudjumper, his eyes clear, flamed the area where Hela was standing, Hiccup's attack on her having apparently broken her control.

But she strolled out of the fire, scowling. "I've been on Midgard too long. My strength is diminished, but once I return..." she shook out her arm. "No wound will be able to break my control."

With a shuddering thud, Cloudjumper landed, clearly intending to tear Hela limb from limb with his claws. He swiped at her, clawing her side open with his razor-sharp talons.

"No! I am your master! Kneel!" Hela commanded. But Cloudjumper continued lunging for her in his fury, completely ignoring her commands. She was no longer in control of him-but before Hiccup could pull Cloudjumper off his mother, she grabbed one of his claws by the wrist and held it back long enough for her to roll out of the way...

And towards the bullhook she'd used back when she'd been Valka. A swing of the hook clouted Cloudjumper on the side of the head, and he slumped, either unconscious or dead.

Hiccup roared in denial-only to see Cloudjumper twitch underneath Hela as she wound up for the killing blow.

"No!" Hiccup bellowed. "Don't kill him! You wanted me, remember!" But he still backed away from Hela. Having seen Cloudjumper dropped with a single strike of her bullhook, Hiccup knew he was in trouble. Hela was not like any other bully that wanted to take his best friend away from him. He was facing off with a _god_!

And she was proving to be a very difficult opponent.

"Enough!" Hela thundered and pointed the bullhook at him.

"You are coming with me, Hiccup Haddock. Either of your own volition, or by the spilled blood of your friends," Hela looked up and her lips curled back into a sneer. "And I promise you, this time I won't miss."

"We survived Drago! To us she's just a stroll in the woods!" Eret swore as they approached the sea-stack once more.

Hiccup looked up to see his friends had regrouped and fear set in. "No, guys, you can't defeat Death herself," he put his hands up, trying to get them to stand down.

"What are you talking about, Hiccup?" Fishlegs asked, his nose scrunched up in confusion.

Hiccup swallowed audibly. "I'm saying...that she's Hela, goddess of death," Hiccup admitted, even finding his own words absurd and hard to swallow and accept.

"Where's Valka!?" Astrid snarled and glared at Hela.

"Perhaps you should tell them, _son_," Hela suggested. An amused smile parted her lips to hear his boon gasp in shock.

"You mean, you," Ruffnut pointed to Hela, then her finger swept over to Hiccup. "And you, are…" she trailed off.

"You're smarter than you look," Hela praised. "That's right. Your chief is a _god_," Hela announced.

"I always thought Hiccup was a wizard, but now... it all makes sense!" Tuffnut shouted excitedly in his saddle.

"Valka was Hela this whole time? Then that means..." Fishlegs gasped and looked over at Hiccup.

"So if Valka is Hela, do we call her Vela?" Ruffnut asked, she looked over to her brother.

"No, no. She'd be Helka!" Tuffnut proposed.

"Catchy!" Ruffnut snickered at his suggestion.

Hela drew her lips into a thin line, her patience with Hiccup's friends was apparently growing thin. "Well, Hiccup. What will it be?" Hela asked.

Hiccup looked between Hela and his friends. He knew in his heart the answer. But he was skeptical. Panic began to set in as his chest rose and fell in succession. If he went with her, he'd lose everything he stood for. But if he didn't, he would be left with a slaughter on his conscience.

Hiccup backed away from Hela and closed his eyes. He had to choose, but no matter what his choice would be, he would lose. He found himself doing something he'd never done before. He began to pray to the gods for an answer.

"Gods, please. Hear me. What do I do?" Hiccup uttered a prayer, begging the gods for a choice. "What should I do?"

'You have the answer all along,' a voice called out to him.

Hiccup gasped sharply and opened his eyes, not having expected to be heard. He found himself in a large golden domed room, the walls etched with intricate decorations and runes. He turned around, his eyes darted wildly in panic as he looked around.

"I can lend some assistance, but I can only do so much without breaking my sworn oath."

Hiccup turned sharply; to his surprise he was standing face-to-face with a man with darker skin than he'd ever seen before, standing far taller than him and who wore plated, articulated armor apparently made from gold and burnished until Hiccup couldn't see any hammer marks in the metal. Oh, and he was carrying a greatsword that looked deadly sharp. He looked at the sword the man held before he looked at his surroundings again.

"Where am I?"

"Asgard. At the gate to the Bifrost," the man said simply.

Hiccup backed up, his head jerking in panic. "N-no, this can't be real… I'm, I'm on-"

The golden man chuckled. "You are on Asgard. And this is very much real. I have been expecting Hela to return since your birth and I have already warned Odin about her intentions." The man approached him. "However I have not told him about your involvement."

"Wait- why? I need help!" Hiccup swallowed his fears and ran up to him. He put his hands out before him to try and stop him from approaching. "Are you even listening to me!?" Hiccup demanded. He half-expected to stop the man so that he would listen to his pleas, but he had not expected the man to step through him as though he were a spirit!

Hiccup exclaimed in shock and he looked down at his trembling hands in panic before looking behind him at the god who continued to approach the altar.

"I can only lend you my assistance, young Asgardian. You will have to accomplish this task of protecting your people on your own," Heimdall-for the man could be no-one else-spoke, focused on his task.

Heimdall's words finally sunk in and Hiccup quickly approached the altar. "Heimdall, wait! How do I do that?"

Hiccup watched in awe as Heimdall placed the sword into the altar and watched it sink in place. Once it clicked into position, the room itself trembled and hummed to life as lightning stretched out like fingers and spread across the domed room. Hiccup braced himself, held his arm up in front of his face and squinted, blocking the bright light from his view as he focussed on the gatekeeper. "You have had the power within you all along, young Hiccup Haddock. Combining our strengths, you can protect your people from Hela. But I must warn you. You will have only one chance. Miss this opportunity and you must live with the consequences," Heimdall warned.

Then Hiccup felt like he was shoved back into his body by an invisible force. He gasped and stumbled back, his arms flailed about in his attempts to steady himself. Failing, he fell to his knees. The strange vision left him gasping, short of breath, and blinking around in confusion. He looked at his friends surrounding him as if not even a second had past, and then at Hela who watched him with her thin lips pulled back into a sneer.

She recognized what had just happened and witnessed Hiccup's eyes a bright golden orange for a split second before they faded to their natural emerald color when he had opened them. "I have people to slaughter and a throne to conquer. And your time is up!" she snarled.

Toothless stirred and shook himself. Seeing Hela aiming the bullhook at Hiccup and Cloudjumper knocked for a loop on the ground, Toothless snarled and began to charge.

"No, Toothless, stand down," Hiccup said firmly, holding his hand out to his friend. Toothless skidded to a halt, confused by his friend's command. Hiccup looked over to Toothless and the two shared a look.

Standing up again, Hiccup ejected his spent Nightmare gel cartridge and replaced it with a new one-although he had two left, he had only one chance. He had to make this work.

"My answer," Hiccup glanced up and saw a radiant rainbow light hurtling towards him above, "is still no!"

Hiccup threw a canister at Hela and a blast from Toothless struck it on cue. It burst in a cloud of flame, forming cover from Hela. Distracted by the explosion, she pulled back and covered her face from the noxious fumes. Cloudjumper stirred, glared at her and hissed before he retreated for Berk.

Hela shouted in anger as she tried to see where Hiccup had gone. But the smokescreen blocked her vision from both him and his friends.

"Let's see if this Belt works," Hiccup told himself and he knelt down. Looking up at the incoming light, Heimdall's warning echoed in his memory. _You have only one chance._

Nodding, Hiccup pushed himself off in a running leap. He focussed on the incoming light and stretched out Inferno towards the sky. He felt the wind whip through his hair and smack his face as he closed the gap. He had ridden Toothless for years but this feeling he felt was nothing compared to riding on the back of a dragon. This was true freedom.

As Hiccup neared the incoming Bifrost, his eyes squinted in pain from the pure light. He could feel the power of the Bifrost slam into the blade of Inferno and his sword threatened to be expelled from his hand by its sheer force. Hiccup grabbed onto the hilt with both of his hands to keep a grip on it as he felt the power of the Bifrost reverberate through his body. He looked out to the horizon and saw Berk. He closed his eyes and focused on everyone that called the island home. His thoughts drifted to Berserk, the Wingmaidens, the Defenders of the Wing that called Caldera Cay home, and everyone within the archipelago that he had encountered either friend or foe as he grew up. He looked below him as his friends looked on in shock and awe. He was not going to let Hela slaughter them all. His father's words crossed his mind. _A chief protects his own._ But Hiccup saw the Archipelago as his extended tribe. He was not going to let them suffer at Hela's wrath either. Hiccup could feel gravity beginning to take hold as he began to descend. Tears appeared in the corner of his eyes as he opened them. It was now or never.

With a shout, Hiccup pivoted and with his newfound strength, he drove Inferno's blade into the air as if he were stabbing flesh or leather. The blade began to slow down his descent as though he were slicing a sail canvas. Lightning emitted from his blade as he tore through the sky, a trail of light followed his descent as the friction from slicing into the sky emitted lightning that formed a protective barrier around him and his friends. Hiccup soon landed with a thud as he touched down.

Hela rushed at the gas smokescreen and manifested two blades, one in each hand. But as Hiccup touched down, lightning sparked the gas cloud and exploded with force that sent her flying back.

His friends gasped as Hiccup rose before them. To them, he looked the same as before, and yet something was very different about him. They weren't sure what it was.

"You always had a flair for the dramatic," Astrid was the first to speak and break the silent reverie that had them under a spell.

Fishlegs looked over to the horizon, his eyes round in shock. "Guys… Look!" Fishlegs gasped and pointed to Berk in the distance. Its silhouette was fading, and in its wake, the horizon was empty-but it was also clearly vanishing as, all around them, the sound echoing for miles, the sea foamed, waves rushing in towards their home... or where their home had once been..

"What's happening? Where's it going!?" Snotlout panicked.

"We are no longer safe here," Hiccup said as he looked his friends over. "We _all_ need to disappear from the map! To protect them," Hiccup nodded towards their dragons then looked over at Hela who fought to get through the lightning barrier in a fit of rage. "From her!"

"You must go," he urged with a nod of his head to the glittering opening he had created.

"What is it? What's on the other side?" Fishlegs asked anxiously.

"It's the Bifrost, it will take you to a safe place," Hiccup explained.

"But what about you?" Astrid asked as she dismounted and approached Hiccup. She eyed the rainbow light warily.

"I'll be fine." Hiccup promised as he looked over at her with a smile.

"Nuh-uh, no way! We're staying and helping!" Snotlout protested as the rest of the group landed.

"That goes double for us!" Tuffnut agreed.

"After all we've been through, you think we're just gonna abandon you?" Ruffnut asked.

"No! You are my friends, my _family_. I, I've already lost too much. I can't afford to lose any one of you too. Please, just do this one thing for me." Hiccup pleaded.

Toothless looked up at Hiccup and gurgled in protest. Hiccup looked down at Toothless with a smile. "It'll be okay, bud. You'll be safer in there with them. I promise. Go with Astrid," Hiccup urged with a nod to Astrid.

"You think this shield will protect you!" Hela thundered as she tried to find a weak point in the barrier.

Toothless glared back up at Hela and hissed. "No, I'll deal with her, go. Go!" Hiccup urged and began to push him away as Astrid climbed into his saddle. Toothless looked up at Hiccup and cooed, confused as to why he was being pushed away.

Hiccup looked to Astrid. "If I had known what kind of day we would be having, I would have slept in with you."

"Hiccup Haddock? Sleeping in past sunrise?" Astrid scoffed and laughed in mock at the very idea.

"After this is over, I swear, you and me. We will have some time to ourselves," Hiccup promised, his hand rested on her thigh and he rubbed it affectionately.

"Just don't go do something stupid like you always do," Astrid leaned down and pulled Hiccup into a kiss. Toothless warbled and bucked in discontent, breaking up their kiss.

Astrid pulled away from Hiccup and looked down at Toothless with a gentle smile. "I know you don't want to leave him behind, but we've got to go," Astrid patted Toothless reassuringly. "Stormfly! With me!" Astrid turned to the Nadder and ushered a reluctant Toothless in through the Bifrost opening. Stormfly gave an indignant squawk before following Astrid through.

"We'll be waiting for ya, H." Tuff saluted Hiccup.

"Better not screw this up!" Ruff warned him as they followed Astrid through on Barf and Belch.

"I'm not good at goodbyes…" Fishlegs admitted tearfully.

Hiccup smiled. "Don't think of this as Goodbye. More of an 'I'll catch up with ya later'," Hiccup promised. Fishlegs nodded and soon followed through on Meatlug.

Hiccup looked at Snotlout who approached Hookfang. "Don't even say it!" Snotlout shouted at him, failing at masking his tears. A sob rushed up and Snotlout strained to keep it hidden.

"Snotlout," Hiccup reached out to his cousin and Snotlout turned away, trying to discreetly wipe his eyes. "They're going to need a strong chief to look after them. Until I get back," Hiccup said. "I can't think of anyone stronger and more suited than my favorite cousin."

Snotlout flinched hearing Hiccup's words and turned to him. "You do realize I'm going to hold that against you," Snotlout pointed out and hopped into his saddle.

Hiccup smiled and nodded, and watched as Snotlout followed in, but not before showing his gratitude by lifting his middle finger at him. Hiccup chuckled as his cousin disappeared into the light.

Eret approached Hiccup hesitantly, "I've, only known you for a few hours…" Eret said as he looked at Hiccup.

"And it's been one hel of a ride," Hiccup confirmed with a nod.

Eret nodded and mounted Skullcrusher. "Eret," Hiccup called out to him. Eret stopped and looked back. "Can I trust you to look after them? They're going to need a strong head to keep them calm after all of this," Hiccup asked.

"What makes you sure I'm not freaking out as well?" Eret asked.

Hiccup glanced back to see Hela trying to find a way through the barrier as she struck at it with her blades, only to have the lightning deflect her sword. "You don't think I'm struggling with this either? This morning, I woke up beside the love of my life, happy, sort of. And now I learn I'm, I'm a god? It's… It's a lot to process. I don't think I will ever come to terms with it. With… her." Hiccup admitted.

"You act as though you're on your deathbed, chief," Eret looked at Hiccup and could see the emotional strain in his eyes. "You have my word." he then nodded.

Hiccup watched with a heavy heart as Eret disappeared through the portal on Skullcrusher. He was finally alone with the goddess of death. No one was left for her to hurt.

"No!" Hela shrieked as Hiccup pulled the Inferno free and the opening sealed off as though it had never happened.

"Now you can't have my dragons, or hurt my friends." Hiccup stood resolute before her and stared at her defiantly. He could see in the distance that the seabed was bare, with miles upon miles of rushing water flowing inwards to fill the hole in the ocean. The sound was... _indescribably loud._

Hela shrieked at him even louder and thrust her hand at him. A sword appeared from nowhere and Hiccup lifted Inferno up to try and deflect the attack. Hiccup barely had time to cry out as the force of the sword strike penetrated his wrist and sent him flying. The sword collided with a large nearby ash tree. Hiccup cried in pain as he dangled from the tree and struggled to reach up, to grab the sword and pull himself free.

"You have been a very naughty boy," Hela said as she approached the tree. Seeing Hiccup struggle, she flung another sword at him. "It's time you were put in time out!"

Hiccup cried out as it pierced his freed wrist. He was now bound to the tree by blades. His chest burned as he dangled from his wrists. It felt like his rib cage was strangling the life out of him from his position. It was difficult to breathe. Hiccup struggled and tried to push his body up in order to get air into his lungs. A sob rushed to the surface, making it even more difficult to breathe, and came out strangled.

"You like it?" Hela acknowledged his sob as though it were a compliment. "It's a little crude, but effective. I invented it as a way to torture my many conquests, the Romans took notice and decided to take the idea from me." Hela purred. A twisted grin appeared for a brief moment before it disappeared.

"Your father was right to name you _Hiccup_," Hela hurled a third sword at Hiccup. This one dug into Hiccup's ankle as he tried to push himself up on the tree.

Hiccup shrieked as the sword penetrated his flesh and bone all the way through and into the tree behind him.

"Luckily _Daddy_ wanted to keep you when we both knew you wouldn't survive past your first winter. Otherwise, I would have gladly offered you to Cloudjumper that night he broke into our house. You were weak when you were born, and you haven't changed," she watched as Hiccup struggled to breath. His mouth opening desperately for air like a fish out of water.

"I will conquer Asgard with or without you. But those dragons, they were my key to victory!" Hela shouted at him.

"So…" Hiccup strained to talk, putting more force on his chest. "So a-all that bonding w-we had was a... a lie?" Hiccup stammered.

"Oh, no. That was genuine. At least, from Valka it was," Hela said. "You could have had it all. Wealth, recognition, _power_. But you squandered it for these... mortals," Hela growled in disgust as she looked out to the vacant ocean horizon where the sea was still roaring, filling in the gap where an island and several miles of ocean had once stood. "And now, you have nothing. No friends, no dragons, no way out…" Hela began to turn and abandon Hiccup as he was bound to the tree.

"Y-you're going to l-let me die? Your own f-flesh and blood!?" His voice was cracking from lack of air and the pressure on his chest as his desperation began to increase. "Answer me!" he shouted at her with a force that he hadn't thought he'd be capable of in his position.

Hela stopped in her tracks, turned and flashed Hiccup a cruel grin. "Now you remind me of your grandfather. Be sure to use your spare time to obtain some wisdom while you're up there," Hela then looked to the horizon. She could see Hiccup had a perfect view of what he had done. But it also reminded her that she was missing an army that she had spent twenty years whispering into Valka's subconscious to gain. "Well, I suppose I could still try to take over Asgard. What could go wrong?"

Hiccup watched as Hela lifted her hands up and vanished in the blink of an eye, leaving the empty horizon where Berk once stood to his viewing pleasure. He lowered his head as tears fell over the brim. They were safe from Hela, but he had sacrificed everything for them. And she was right. He could not hear any dragons as the ocean's churning settled. It was a sound he had become so accustomed to, he had never thought it was possible to live without it. All he heard were the sounds of seabirds and the crashing of the waves against the sea stacks. A painful reminder of what he had done.

Hiccup spent the first day trying to push himself up to breathe. The way his arms were angled made it difficult. His left leg dangled freely, and he used his prosthetic to painfully push himself up by getting a foothold on the sword lodged into his ankle.

On the second day, Hiccup tried to pull himself free. He had all but grown used to the pain in his wrists and ankle, and he struggled to find a way down until the pain became too excruciating, until he had no strength left in him. The swords had him perfectly pinned to the tree, making escape impossible on his own. Hela's words bounced around his skull. _Be sure to use your spare time to obtain some wisdom while you're up there. _He took her advice to heart when he found he no longer possessed the strength to hold himself up. He could feel the energy weakly coursing through him as he closed his eyes and cleared his mind, focussing only on the Belt and its magical properties. He hoped that it might give him strength to endure his torture, at least until he could figure out how to get himself down. Hoping to get rescued was an illusion, it seemed. The archipelago was gone, and there was no one for _miles_. Apparently, his destiny was to die pinned to this tree. But if he could tap into the Belt, if he could access its power, he might be able to rescue himself.

For the next seven days he focussed on the Belt and struggled with trying to find a way out of his situation. On the third day, he felt around the sense of energy entering into him from it... and on the fifth day, he figured out how to manipulate it... somewhat. Enough to give more strength into his limbs and keep his lungs working and heart beating.

By the time the eighth day dawned, Hiccup knew that he couldn't hold out much longer, despite what he was drawing on from the Belt. Anyone suffering this kind of torture would have passed when breathing was this difficult. Dehydration alone would soon claim him, despite his best efforts. Rain gently pelted his face and he lifted his head. He opened his mouth to catch what little water he could to quench his parched throat. Growing bleak and weary, Hiccup looked up at the sky in desperation.

"I... I c-can't do this any longer. I'm... I'm dying," Hiccup admitted through thickened lips, hoping that his prayer would be answered a second time. He lowered his head and his gaze fell upon the empty horizon. "I did ev-everything I cou-could to protect them." Hiccup broke into a cough, his breathing was rasp and made it difficult to speak. "Please Allfather, I've suffered en-enough. Let me be with my father in Vallhalla," Hiccup pleaded. Intently, he stared up at the sky, looking, listening, searching for any sign that the gods had heard him like before. But seconds of anxious waiting turned into minutes, and all that answered Hiccup was the wind. A sob crept up his throat. The gods had abandoned him as had his mother. He felt like a fool to waste his voice on deaf ears.

Hiccup awoke to the sound of a hellish thunderclap, on the ninth day, but did not stir. His strength and energy had been spent. He had never expected death to take so long and he longed to see his father again. He knew that at least in death, he would still have one parent. But now as he felt his breath growing more and more difficult to draw, he realized that he had lost both of them in less than a day. One parent died protecting him out of love, and the other had left him to die for protecting what he loved. If he wasn't exhausted, he might have found it amusing that he would die like his father by the hands of a warlord, which as it turned out his mother was one.

A sudden pain coursed through his body and Hiccup would have screamed had he any breath left in his lungs. It felt as though the blades had re-entered his body but in reverse. Had Hela returned to finish what she'd started? Hiccup tried to open his eyes but all he saw was a blur of colors. The colors moved and swirled, telling him that someone was there. Maybe it was the light of the sun rising behind the figure, but he felt an odd sense of benevolence from this figure. Then the second sword was removed from his wrist. His eyes clenched tightly shut as he tried to hold in the scream, his throat too hoarse to make a sound.

He must have passed out for a brief moment. The bark of the tree suddenly felt like grass against his cheek, and he sucked in a greedy breath now that his body was in a relaxed position. Then he became aware of his surroundings. The grass against his skin was a texture his body had ached longingly to feel for days, but had been just out of his reach, taunting him. Hiccup wondered if he was hallucinating. People said that one hallucinated when on the threshold of death. It took effort to crack his eyes open, but he found the energy to do so, and the world swam into view. It was a swirl of colors... but despite the surrealness of it, it was very clear that he was not hallucinating. He was on his back, lying in the soft grass, still moist from the morning dew. Hiccup had never imagined he would feel this texture against his skin again before his death. He wanted to run his fingers through the soft prickly spines and nuzzle against them but he could barely lift a finger.

Then he felt something. A warmth that spread throughout his body, comforting him and making him drowsy. He tried to lift his head or shift it but it was dead weight. What he could see out of the corner of his eyes was the same divine figure as before. He was closer to Hiccup and could almost make out _some_ details. Crimson red fluttered behind this figure that wore what looked like dark armor and Hiccup instantly knew that it was a cape. Beneath the dark helmet, Hiccup could almost make out a grey beard. The figure was too far for him to be able to make eye contact before they too blurred into obscurity with the rest of the world.

"You... You heard me?" Hiccup's voice was weak, barely audible. A trembling smile crept along his lips as he felt relief wash over him.

"I did." The voice was powerful, commanding, but spoke with a softness that reminded him so much of his father. The voice was soothing but his heart ached for his father.

Hiccup gazed out to the ocean where an empty void greeted him. They were gone, and yet he was still there. Suffering for his choice. He strained to look up at the figure by his side.

"Was, was it worth i-it?" Hiccup asked. He gazed back out to the horizon. Though he couldn't make out any details, he knew Berk was still gone.

"That depends." the man said. "Whether it was worth it is for you to decide. You had the chance to turn your back on those who made growing up a hardship, but you didn't. Instead, you put yourself in harms way to save them. You're a selfless man, Hiccup Haddock, traded in your life for those you love. If only my own son would learn from watching you."

Hiccup glanced back at the man before looking down as he absorbed all that he said. The gods had been watching him from the day of his birth. That meant that they must have seen him rise from a fishbone to a proud Viking chief. Then it dawned on him, this man had to be the Allfather, Odin. Memories of joking about Thor favoring Hiccup while growing up flickered to life between the growing haze. They were a joke back then, but after all that had happened the concept wasn't as absurd as it sounded. He hadn't noticed his eyelids were getting heavier with each passing second as the warmth noticeably grew.

"Why-" Hiccup began to ask. He had so many questions he wanted answered but his eyes finally slid shut and unconsciousness swept him away like a dark tide.

"Rest. When you awaken, all your questions will be answered, my grandson," Odin promised and reached out to brush hair out of Hiccup's face; Hiccup only distantly heard his words. "If only I had gotten to your mother sooner you wouldn't have suffered for my foolish choices. But, in the meantime, let's get you someplace safe for you to recuperate..."

* * *

AN: Please don't kill me. Hiccup is not dead. You'll have to wait and find out what happens once the rest of the chapters are gone through a revision. If you'd like to continue reading, you can find it on Archive of our own under my username PrimedOverlord. Do not worry, for those don't use A03, I will be posting a new chapter here every Friday until I am caught up with A03's chapter releases.

I'd also like to give a big shout out to my beta-readers Athingofvikings and Shipmistress for being a huge help on this fic. Please be sure and check their fics out as well.


	2. The Sleeping Raven Awakens

Light pierced thick and humid air for the first time in a thousand years. The beam diffused quickly; as the air flowed down the newly opened passage, it cooled and quickly turned to fog, turning the tunnel into a world of white in the beam of the flashlight.

A clicking issued from a backpack, and there was a quick moment of examination.

"Be careful not to wander off. This place has elevated radiation readings, probably volcanic outgassing. It's only a few milliSieverts, but we shouldn't linger too long," a man warned and entered the chamber.

"Noted. So why did they say it was a Viking tomb?" a female voice broke through the sound of electronic ticking, sounding doubtful. She looked around the tunnel entrance for any archaeological treasures as she entered the pitch blackness of the cave with her headlamp as her only source of light.

"Look, there," he shined his flashlight on barely legible runes dripping with condensation, the divots filled in with minerals over the centuries. "Left by the graverobbers who snooped around for treasure, no doubt. And a local at the diner said there was a rumor about this place being cursed by the All-Father, Odin, himself. Something must be in here and it's worth a look." Once, a statement like this would have sounded ridiculous. But after New York and everything after, many things had changed. Especially in regards of the old Norse Gods.

The woman looked up at the faded runes before looking back at her colleague. "What do they say?" she asked curiously, approaching the cave wall to reach up, seeing just how much taller the men who came before them were in comparison to her short frame. She looked at the walls for any more signs and saw other grooves–which looked more like gashes dug into the rock by force. Seeing the grooves sent chills down her spine as they brought back flickers of memory of a sci-fi flick she'd seen in her youth. The gashes also reminded her of a young man who had been mauled to death by a bear during her internship, years ago. She took a closer look and shuddered. They weren't tool marks. No, these grooves were definitely made by a predator, one which had some pretty impressive strength to leave gashes in solid rock. With the grooves just as worn down by the same elements as the runes, it was unlikely that she would be able to get a measure of just how deep these lacerations went.

"Looks like they carved their names into the wall. Vikings were the first graffiti artists, after all." the man said, chuckling.

She rolled her eyes at her companion's joke and followed the tunnel to an opening at the end. She exited into a large, broad chamber. Light streaming in through a hidden opening bounced off crystals in the walls, which glistened, making bodies of water look backlit by a single light source. The chamber was warm and fed from the heat of an underground thermal vent. It was truly a sight right out of a fantasy. The gentle sound of a spring trickling in the distance drew her in further and soon she found the source. She looked into the stream and could see that the waters sparkled with pristine clarity, baring to her the contents of the stream's floor invitingly. Feeling the heat emanating from the stream, she wanted more than anything to take a soak. But there was a spa back at the hotel that would have to do instead; aside from whatever was making the Geiger counter click every so often, for all she knew, the water was acidic and would dissolve her skin, like that fellow at Yellowstone who had decided to take a swim in one of the hot springs and had melted in a few minutes. She then looked up and down where the stream flowed, seeing more chambers the stream split and fed into.

"This place is amazing!" she whistled and turned around to see the chamber she'd just come through. She looked down at what she had stepped on, hearing and feeling brittle snapping sounds under her shoes. Her flashlight shone on fragments of what looked like broken pottery littering the stream bed. With the mineral deposits that had collected up over the years, it was hard to tell. "Doc! Doc, I think I found something..." she called down to him as he came up to the stream.

"Let's have a look," he knelt down as he came to a stop by the edge of the stream.

He picked up a couple fragments curiously and, after testing the water's safety using a pencil to make sure it was safe, scraped and panned off the settled sediment in the stream until he had a couple of fragile specimens.

She watched him fiddle with them for a few moments. "Hmm. These aren't pottery shards. Look, there's no... oh. My."

"What?"

"_Look."_ He held the fragment up to her flashlight, and she gasped.

"It's an _eggshell._" The inside of the curve was white, and shimmered like the inside of a clam shell, while the outside looked almost like stone.

"The size of a mango, yeah."

"What animal could be responsible for... those?" she asked anxiously. She did not want to meet the creator of the eggs in the depths of the tunnel. It was bad enough that the grooves in the tunnel walls made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.

"Not sure. But they're clustered at the edge of the stream, look. There, and there!" he pointed out with his flashlight.

She looked up and around them, seeing nesting signs at the edge of the stream. Basing on what they'd seen, it looked like the animals nested in the hot springs. However, with no sufficiently intact specimens to give them a sense of the creature's size–although eggs were not directly correlated with animal size, as the kiwi demonstrated–it left more questions than answers.

The two ventured across the shin-deep stream, hopping carefully from rock to rock, and ventured further into the small network of caves until they reached branching tunnels at the end and stopped.

"Which way now?" she asked, looking over at her companion before looking at her device. "We can go a little ways further before it's unsafe."

She watched as her friend walked up to a pile of rubble. He picked it apart, and studied his surroundings now and then, staring at the walls before he finally turned to her.

"We go this way," he pointed behind him with his thumb.

"I'll bite, why?" she asked as she approached the mouth of the cave.

"More runes up there–likely placed as markers so they wouldn't get lost, and the triple horn of Odin on some of the rocks down here. Looks like it may have once been sealed off before our grave robbers busted their way in." he explained and entered the tunnel.

She approached the mouth of the tunnel and looked down at the rubble. It was hard to see, as it was broken up, but a piece of the ornate interlocking triangle could be seen on one smoother piece of stone, the edges of the breaks still fresh and unweathered. Taking his word for it, she followed him into the new tunnel. The further into the tunnel they went, the more she began to see scorch marks where something of intense heat had charred the floors black in areas. It was odd to say the least. But there also had to be a way out of the caves ahead of them, as there was an odd glow in the fog ahead which looked like sunlight.

"Emi! Come! You have to see this!" echoed oddly from up ahead.

"Coming!" she called.

Walking carefully, she sidestepped one of the oddly-placed burn marks, but misjudging her footing in the fog. Sliding on the damp stone, she kept from twisting her ankle, instead stumbled into the next chamber, colliding with her colleague, but managed to catch herself on him before she could fall further. "Sorry…" she apologized.

When he did not respond, she looked up at him and found him staring in silent wonderment. "Doc? Doctor Nickolai...?" she asked curiously, and waved her hand in front of his eyes–and then turned to follow his gaze.

There was an odd glow in the center of the room that lit the fog with a golden light. She instinctively glanced at the ceiling, but the light wasn't coming from above. Instead, a golden dome seemed to fill the center of the foggy room.

The Geiger counter was clicking more aggressively, and he said, "I think we found the source of the radiation..."

"Yeah..." she commented, stepping carefully on the floor; it was level–almost too level, despite appearing natural. But then her caution was rewarded when she kept herself from walking straight into a line of knee-high rocks.

"What's this?" she asked, examining the one she'd almost hit. It had obviously been placed there on purpose, along with the others in the line, but for what purpose, she had no idea.

Her companion said, almost reverently, "Emi…. Do you realize what we just _found_?" he asked with uncontained excitement as he reached out and touched one of the rocks.

"Can't say that I know what I'm looking at, Doc," Emi admitted. Norse history was not her strong suit. But she had no doubt that she would learn about them working with the Doc as his forensic anthropologist.

"Contrary to popular belief, a 'Viking Funeral' didn't always involve a ship pyre; boats are expensive, after all. But they did use ship imagery. Look at the lines of the rocks; they're in the shape of a ship..." His flashlight beam followed the line of the rocks, and they did indeed form two curved lines, with the two of them standing near the point. "The Norse would bury their dead surrounded by stones to form a Stone Ship..."

He pointed his flashlight beam at the center, where the glow was. "And there we have the main corpse."

"Wait, what?" Emily blurted.

Her companion turned and grinned at her, before hopping over the stones and approaching the glow, the Geiger counter in his backpack noticeably clicking more. Not _that_ much more, but enough to make Emily nervous.

But she forgot that when the Doc flicked his flashlight beam on the glow, and now he was close enough for the beam to penetrate instead of diffuse in the fog–revealing a corpse.

"Oh. Guess they were telling the truth about the tomb... and maybe the bit about Odin," Emi said, and hopped over the stones as well. The vision became more unusual the longer she looked. The corpse was aglow with a radiant light that came from… nowhere. She checked the ceiling again, only to find it as a solid dome of rock. It was as though the corpse _was_ the source of the heavenly light.

Steeling herself, Emi approached the slab for a closer look, watching as the Doc already had his camera out, but was frowning. "My camera isn't working. Some kind of interference."

His attention turned to the corpse, barely able to contain his excitement despite his inability to document their encounter.

"Remarkable! He looks as though he died only yesterday. The radiation must have prevented his celular structure from decomposing!" he said with elation. "This has to be related to Asgardian technology!"

As she neared the slab, Emi looked the corpse over. He appeared to have been in his twenties and was rather scrawny for a Viking. At the very least, he was _certainly _far from the beefy depictions of Vikings in the media–not to mention the Asgardians who had settled in Norway. Anxiously, Emi edged in for a closer look as the Geiger counter in her backpack began to increase in warning. The ethereal light revealed more details; she observed his features as she neared. He looked like he was of Scottish descent at first glance, and was flecked with abundant freckles. A short beard hugged his jawline and lips. She scoffed. If he'd been alive, she might have considered dating him. He was very handsome and easy on the eyes by her standards.

Looking down, she studied his outfit. He wore a padded green tunic and leather pants with dark armor plating on his shoulders and upper chest. It looked like biking leather to the untrained eye. Clinging to his shoulders was an old and dusty fur cloak. If she had to take a guess, it was likely bear fur. Her gaze fell to his waist and saw a belt buckle with a dragon engraved on it. Remembering that detail, she looked back at his chest and saw a buckle with a dragon engraving as well. Curiosity got the better of her and she reached out, wanting to feel the grooves of the ornate buckle. She hissed in pain and a bit of confusion as static buildup bit her through her gloves and she quickly pulled back, shaking her hand furiously as she felt the charge race up her arm before it dissolved.

"I need to document this extraordinary find! Work already!" the Doc grunted in frustration and suddenly yelped as a flash lit up the area in a burst of light. The Geiger counter gave one last flurry of clicks and then went quiet.

Emi and Doc Nick shared a look. "Did you break something?" he asked.

"I... I touched it, and got shocked through the gloves," she admitted.

"Emi... the glow is fading," Nickolai said, looking worried.

"Shit, shit, shit! Start documenting!" Emi turned to the corpse, and started to look it over; if she had disrupted something with her touch, they might have only minutes before the environment started to destroy the corpse.

She pulled out a sketchbook and started to make notes about the corpse's attire and body. The corpse appeared to be wearing a prosthetic on his left leg that began just below his knee. It was a strange contraption that was a mix of metal and wood and looked like it had spinning gears with a slit in the base for interchangeable parts. It possibly had multiple uses, leaving her with more questions.

"My camera's working again! Yes!" Doc Nick said, and started to photograph all that he could.

"I wonder how this fellow died," he mused thoughtfully. They had no permission to remove the corpse to study back in his lab. The tomb was on protected land–and if Asgardians were involved, that would just make things even _more_ legally complicated.

Emi looked back to the face of the corpse. Her gaze drifted down to his wrists and saw very faint scarring what looked like they may have been gashes at one time. She hummed in thought and flipped his wrist over. To her surprise the same scarring could be seen through damaged brackets on the other side. She looked over to his other wrist which also bore the same scarring and her fear grew. She knew what it meant to have gashes on the wrists extend on the adjacent side. But she had to check his only remaining foot to clarify her fears. Sure enough, as she peeled back the loose fabric, she could see his foot had matching scars and with an accompanying tear out the rear, she didn't need to peel back the leather fabric to know there were matching scars. It was strange, usually these types of wounds were made using nails to secure the victim, but compared to the injuries she had witnessed having exhumed and documented victims in the East, they were much larger. Victims were also stripped of clothes as an act of dehumanizing them–and to expose them to the elements–but the tears in the clothing matching the scars looked like it had been hastily done. She knew exactly what this meant and she winced in pity for him.

"I think this poor guy was crucified," she admitted.

"Crucifixion? This far north?" he asked with a tone of skepticism. He wandered over and looked the evidence over.

"Look at the lacerations down the extent of his wrists. They extend to the other side," Emi picked up the corpse's hand to get a clearer view as she exposed the wrist to the Doc. The skin... she was a forensic anthropologist, so most of the time, the corpses she was called upon to examine were not _exactly_ fresh. But she would have sworn that the corpse had only died moments ago. His skin had not yet begun to cool to ambient, although that might have been a trick of perception from just how _warm_ it was in this cave. That being said, it had the tactile sensation of still-living skin, so whatever process had preserved him had even staved off rigor mortis. It was not at all what she had experienced with corpses in her college years studying the forensic sciences. "They're even on his ankle."

"But that's impossible if his wounds have already healed. Perhaps he was a victim at one time, but he doesn't look like he would have died from his injuries. Unless a tetanus infection got him later." he said and snapped a few more pictures of the corpse's wrists before pulling away.

"I don't know what else to tell ya without cutting him open, Doc," Emi said with a shrug. "And I'm worried that I might have done enough damage already." She motioned to the slab; the glow had completely faded by this point, leaving them in the dark with their flashlights as their only source of light. She flinched in guilt. They were going to have to work fast if the Doc was going to preserve the right to further excavate this site and she could further examine the corpse.

She followed him to the edge of the burial plot and watched as he bent down, studying the Stone Ship.

"These stones don't match the colors of the local rock formations. And it must have taken a massive line of people to build a Stone Ship of this size! I wonder what quarry they got these stones from…" Doc Nick mused in excitable thought. "Or if they even needed to... given that Asgardian tech is involved," he added.

"Perhaps we should wait until the body is preserved before we ask technical questions?" Emi offered.

"Yes, yes. We'll be back," he said excitedly. "Once we have this place sealed off and protected. Don't want this find of the century being desecrated if word got out before it's secure. There are a lot of lunatics out there who would do such a thing. Like that anti-Asgardian movement that desecrated those ancient Stone Ships in Northern Germany. Can't afford to have that happen here." There was a pained tone to the Doc's voice. But then his tone turned more upbeat. "Just think, this really _is_ the holy grail! Or at least one of Idunn's Golden Apples! You're not going to find a body _THAT_ well preserved twice in a lifetime. I knew I was right to follow up on that email. And because of it, I'm going to be in the history books!" he said jovially. "Oh, you'll be in the books too, of course!"

Emi paused briefly, hearing his excited rambling. She clenched her jaw tight. She didn't think she liked the idea of being in the spotlight. Which was probably why she was happiest working in this field. Forensic anthropologists didn't exactly get that much attention in the media. Not unless you get a show about them popping up now and then which was a good thing on its own, as it drew in new faces who grew interested in the field. In Emi's case, she was naturally drawn to the morbid and the macabre, starting with her love affair with paleontology as a kid. It just grew from there. But the idea of being in the spotlight made her feel ill.

Emi glanced back at the corpse one last time, feeling guilty. He'd been here for centuries undisturbed, and in five minutes, she'd probably doomed him to rot within a week. By all rights, her license as a forensic anthropologist should be yanked for that sort of clumsiness, or at least brought up for review. These weren't the bad-old days of archeologists being little more than looters any longer.

"Hurry up, Emi! The faster we get back to the sat-phone, the faster we can get this place locked down and prepped for a proper excavation," Doc Nick called from ahead.

With a regretful sigh, Emi turned and followed her companion out back the way they entered. Hopefully, the information they'd found would be enough to have a proper expedition mounted, and _quickly,_ before the corpse decomposed. He belonged in a climate-controlled case at a museum, at the very least, like Ötzi the Iceman.

Then Emi froze as there was the sound of metal scraping against rock from somewhere in the chamber. "Wait, wait, Doc. Did you hear that?" Emi had asked, feeling her fear spike.

"Probably loose rock in another chamber, I need to hurry if we're to get this place secure," he dismissed, continuing walking towards the tunnel mouth.

Ghost stories of King Tut's curse dancing through her head, Emi looked back, shining her light on the slab...

And shrieked, as the _corpse _was now sitting up and stretching–which turned into a painful flinch as her high-lumens flashlight hit him in the eyes, making him reflexively shield them.

"What the–!?" Doc Nick blurted behind her, but Emi paid him no mind, as she watched the corpse get to his own two feet–if you counted his prosthetic–and take a wobbly yet clearly defensive stance.

There was a moment as she stared at him, the impossibilities of the moment cascading through Emi's mind. But before she could say anything, the figure, breathing heavily, suddenly burst into motion and ran at them.

Emi tried to get out of the way, but her shock made her slow, and the figure shoved her out of the way, and she hit the ground with a thud. A following yelp from behind her indicated the Doc had likewise been pushed. She rolled to watch the figure dash out of the chamber recklessly, leaving them behind.

###

"Oh… I'm going to feel that in the morning," Nickolai complained, sitting up. It figured. It just figured. Asgardians showed up, and reason and logic and things like that went and cried in the corner.

"How did that... did we just unleash a draugr?" Emi asked intently.

"What do you mean, _we_? _You_ touched him," he pointed out, watching her get back to her feet. Meanwhile, his joints ached from the sudden collision with the wall, but he pushed himself up to his feet as well.

Emi let out a sharp gasp. "Nikki's alone." She ran ahead, familial instinct clearly propelling her. With a weary sigh, Nickolai turned to follow.

They soon caught up to find their 'corpse' kneeling in the afternoon sun. He appeared to be soaking in the warmth of the sun's rays with his back arched and facing the sky, his eyes closed.

"Is he…?" Emi approached the unmoving figure. He whirled to face her. The corpse swiftly rose to his feet and patted himself down for a weapon. He withdrew a small dagger from his left arm bracket and pointed it at them, his lips pulled back in a grimace.

"Whoa, he's not!" Emi backpedaled away from him. She landed on the gravel with a yelp of pain.

That made the reanimated corpse–who, despite his age, appeared to be quite healthy (damn Asgardians!)–blink in surprise. He backed up another step, and was clearly taking a closer look at them. Nickolai wondered what he saw... and how he was interpreting it.

He considered his own outfit. Sturdy hiking boots, thick jeans, a flannel shirt and a vest with bulging pockets, his digital camera dangling from one hand, a yellow hard-hat with a lamp on his head, and Emi dressed much the same. How would this man interpret it? If he was Asgardian–which was Nickolai's current reigning theory–he would likely be somewhat dismissive. But if he was actually a Norseman, preserved since the Viking era for whatever reason...

He shivered in academic excitement and calmed himself. Oh, the questions he could get answered...

Clearing his throat, he carefully put the camera in its vest-pouch after thumbing the video to 'record', and then spread his hands in the universal sign for 'I come unarmed'.

"Ow..." Emi moaned, and then looked up. "Doc! Wait!"

"It's all right..." _I hope._ He eyed the dagger in the draugr's left hand. Blade of approximately nineteen centimeters in length, iron blade approximately five centimeters wide, sharpened on both edges, with no visible blood channel. Iron crossguard, with what looked like a leather accent at the pommel.

And, despite having spent a few centuries in a foggy tomb, it looked like it had been forged _recently_.

Thoughts of analyzing it to be able to settle some long-term arguments over Viking forging techniques danced in his head, until the draugr pointed it at him, still panting, and Nickolai made one final observation: centuries old or not, it looked _pretty damn sharp..._

Hoping that he wasn't about to make a mistake that would end in some rather pointed consequences, Nickolai, his hands still open and raised, stepped forward and said in Norwegian, "Hey... could you put the knife down? We're not going to hurt you."

The corpse blinked, confused.

Well, not Asgardian then. They all spoke fluent English and all of the Scandinavian languages.

After a moment, the corpse coughed and said in what sounded like Old Icelandic, "Uh... _what_ did you just say?"

His heart pounding excitedly, Nickolai riffled through his head, trying to recall how the language had shifted... right... Old West Norse, which had led to Icelandic, was different in consonantal fusion than Old East Norse.

Taking a deep breath, trying to keep his giddiness under control, he said in his best approximation of the old language, "I asked if you could put the knife down. We come in peace."

The corpse blinked again, looking confused. "I can barely understand you... but... wait. Where am I?"

Nickolai swallowed, his excitement making his mouth dry, and forced the old words to his mouth. "You're on the island of Svalbard, in the..." How to say 'Arctic'? "In the Northmost Sea. We just woke you up."

The... well, not-a-corpse blinked at him. "Svalbard? I'm... How... You... you don't sound Norse!"

"I'm not. I was trained in Old Norse in... school," Nickolai said carefully. He'd come to a halt just outside of easy lunging range.

The not-a-draugr looked at him, looked at the knife, and carefully put it away in an arm-sheath. "Old? Who are you calling 'Old'? You're not exactly getting any younger yourself!"

Nickolai shrugged and gave a wide and hopefully disarming smile. "Well–"

But the fellow stared at him in sudden horror and staggered back. "Toothless!"

Nickolai jerked back in sudden confusion, wondering what the... No, he had all of his teeth, and as far as he knew, there was no taboo against smiling in Norse culture–

"TOOTHLESS!" the fellow bellowed, his eyes wide and panicked, cupping his hands and shouting at the top of his lungs.

A crunch of gravel at Nickolai's side announced Emi's presence.

"Is he... all right?" she asked softly in English, watching the young man–and now that he was moving around, Nickolai could see that he _was_ truly young, in his mid-twenties at the latest.

Blinking to shift himself back to English, Nickolai shook his head as the young man was shouting the word _Toothless_ at the top of his lungs, sounding like he was on the brink of despair. "I... I don't think so," he said softly.

That was the last thing he said before the young man whirled and turned to look at them. He ran over and grabbed Nickolai by the biceps and babbled something in Old Norse.

Nickolai took a deep breath and transitioned back with a degree of effort, the old language, with all of its rule shifts, coming with difficulty.

"I'm sorry, you spoke too fast. Can you repeat it?" he asked carefully.

"Please! Was there... was there someone… or something else in there? A message, something?"

"There were runes carved on the walls..." Nickolai started, and with a jolt, the young man ran off back into the cave–and when he went for a short scabbard on his thigh, he found it empty, and his fingers jerked back as if burned.

He turned back to look at Nickolai. "Please," he said, sounding like he was begging, "I need that elf-light you have there."

Nickolai held out his flashlight without question, making a mental note at exactly how the Old Norseman referred to it. _Fascinating._

"Thank you!" the young man snatched it and ran off into the cave.

Sharing a look with Emi, they wordlessly followed.

The fellow was running the light over the etchings on the wall, despair on his face. "No, no, no..."

As Nickolai's steps crunched on the gravel, the light suddenly shone in his face. "These aren't runes! They're dragon marks! Where are the runes?"

Nickolai blinked. "Dragon marks?" he blurted in English, and then repeated it in Old Norse, as Emi made choking noises.

"Yeah, you know?" the young man extended a hand and made a raking motion with stiff fingertips against the wall.

Emi said quietly, "I don't understand a word he just said, but I understood _that_ just fine."

"Dragon marks, you say," Nickolai said faintly.

The Old Norseman nodded. "Uh... I'd say Gronckle or Nadder, judging by the look of them. But you said there were runes?"

"I... might have been mistaken," Nickolai said quietly. Dragons. Well, people took Instagram photos with Thor these days...

That appeared to make the Norseman's fragile composure crack, and he started hyperventilating. He fell to his knees and the flashlight rolled out of his hands, coming to a halt illuminating the wall and the run... the _dragon claw marks_ in the stone.

Emi knelt down next to him and pulled him into a hug, drawing him tight against her shoulder as though she had practice.

He broke down into shaking sobs as Nickolai watched. Feeling uncomfortable, he turned and looked at the marks on the wall for several minutes. Forming his hand into a claw, he mimed a few slashes at it, and saw that, yes...

They were claw marks.

Then he gasped in realization.

"What?" both Emi and the Norseman asked, looking up in unison, his tears making wet marks on his cheeks but looking calmer.

"Emi..." Nickolai said in English. "Those were dragon eggs by the stream."

The Norseman looked at them and said quietly, "I don't recognize your tongue. Where are you from?"

"Uh..." Nickolai stammered. Images of uncontacted tribes drinking Coke and wearing jeans suddenly sprang to mind. Bad enough that he'd given the Norseman his flashlight and shown him their modern clothing.

His hesitation made the Norseman's eyes narrow, and he stood and backed away as he wiped away the remainder of his tears in frustration. "Where!?"

Nickolai sighed and said, apologizing to his future self in case this irrefutably contaminated his find, "By the Christian calendar, it's AD Two Thousand and Eighteen."

The Norseman blinked. "Those are those people from the South who worship... I don't remember what Jorn said about them. I remember that King Olaf was converting people in his kingdom to that god, though."

"Saint Olaf of Norway?" Nickolai asked, relieved. Finally, a temporal signpost he recognized!

"Uh... I suppose? What's a 'saint'?"

Nickolai opened his mouth to answer, and then froze. "Thaaaat would take some explaining." And do incredible damage to a _pre-Christian Norseman's personal accounts of the pagan religion._ He swallowed and thought. "When you last remember, how many years had Olaf Haraldsson been ruling Norway?"

The Norseman quirked an eyebrow, ran his hands through his hair, and said, "Two or three, I think?"

Nickolai's heart gave a funny jump. Something must have shown on his face, because the Norseman's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"Um..." Oh, God, how to explain this... "I'm from a land to the south, Deutschland. My assistant here, Emily, is from a land far, far to the west, past Iceland and Greenland. But... the issue for you is not the distance. It... it is the time."

"What do you mean?" the Norseman asked, still looking at Nickolai carefully. "What is the time?"

"How many winters have you seen?"

"Twenty," the Norseman said suspiciously.

Nickolai took a deep breath, braced himself, gave a silent apology to the fathers of history, and said, "For every year you've lived, you've spent fifty asleep."

"What."

"It... it has been a thousand years. Olaf was crowned in the Christian year of One Thousand and Fifteen."

The Norseman looked at him as though he had gone crazy. "No, that's…That's… A thou… A thousand…"

The Doc watched as he backed off in clear panic and denial as his head jerked, unable to process this new information.

"A thousand… _YEARS_!" his response to the news wasn't exactly what the Doc had expected, but he had predicted the news would not go over so well.

Nickolai watched as the Norseman's body began to sway and then went limp as he began to back off again, his knees collapsed and he toppled to the solid rock floor with a heavy thud. Immediately Nickolai raced over in panic, fear raced through him and fed his imagination worst case scenarios. He was relieved to see eyes flicker open as he kneeled over the young man. Huffing a sigh of relief, he began to help the Norseman back to his feet.

Nickolai struggled to help their friend up, praying he hadn't injured himself in the sudden and unexpected fall. He checked the Norseman's head for any visible injuries, bumps or blood to indicate scrapes, but was relieved to see none. Instead, he saw a few braids woven into his hair and his mind wandered. It had not been confirmed that the Norse ritually braided each other's hair, but he knew through historic documented encounters that they did ritualistically wash their hair every morning, which was a romantic gesture between husband and wife. Looking closer, the Norseman didn't show any indications that he was married, no ring for that matter aside from the ones that adorn his middle fingers that appeared to be connected to leather. He counted three braids near their Norseman's right ear as Nickolai balanced him up against his chest and wondered who may have braided them and just how close to him they were. He observed that the Norseman yanked his head away with a grunt when his fingers drew too close to these braids. They likely held sentimental importance. He would have Emily look him over for any injuries later. For now, he did not want to upset their friend and complied with leaving the braids be, despite the gnawing urges to get a closer look at them. "Are you alright?"

"I, I remember now…" the man mumbled in his arms, dispirited and looking as though he had done something horrible. He looked down to his arms–more specifically, his wrists–and appeared to be relieved before resting his full body weight against Nickolai.

Emily wasted no time coming to his aid and Nickolai hefted him to where he could get an arm slung over his shoulders. Between the two of them, they managed to get the young Norseman back on his feet.

"Nickolai," Emily strained under the weight. "What's going on? What was he saying?"

Nickolai looked down at their 'young' friend before looking over at her. "He's not a draugr," he reassured. "He's just... lost. But he's awfully weak."

"We should get him back to the Jeep then–"

"No, no! Look at him, Emi! He's a living relic from the past! If we take him to the Jeep, we'll contaminate him more than we already have!" he argued. Dread hit his stomach as the very thought of exposing their friend to modern advances crept into his mind. There was still so many questions he wanted to ask him. And was afraid that the wonders of the modern era would taint his memory, let alone his way of life. It's bad enough that they'd already exposed him to a fraction already with the news of Olaf's death and their clothing attire alone.

"But Doc. He's going to need water, food. We can't deny him that," Emily argued.

Nickolai looked at her, then around them. She was right. There was no way they could safely give him water or food. And eventually he would have to transport his find to the mainland for further observation.

Nickolai inhaled deeply, regretting what he's about to say. "Alright, but… just the Jeep."

* * *

AN: I was supposed to upload this last Friday, but things got too busy. After today, I will upload chapters until it's caught up with the story on A03.


	3. And Begins His Journey

Blinking, the camera flickered to life. It absorbed the details of a clean Jeep dashboard and the rocky hills of Svalbard's wild terrain outside, dotted with boulders and patches of snow before a voice began to narrate in a dramatic tone.

"Death vlog entry twenty three: I continue to suffer from boredom in exile on Svalbard. I was supposed to be filming my aunt's job for assignment, having gotten a lead about a possible corpse at the end of the world. Instead, it has come to my attention that my aunt would not make a great parent since she's abandoned me—a convicted felon—to my own devices in a vehicle all alone." The camera panned onto a sixteen-year-old with short cut dark brown hair and light blue eyes before it panned back out to the rich wilderness and a winding path that lead up into the mountains. Three people rounded the curving path and came into view hobbling towards the Jeep. "And here comes the Belle of the ball. Oh, wow, she's even bringing home a drunk homeless guy! Very classy, Aunt Em!"

Nikki scooted over to the door and watched as they neared. Their 'guest' looked at their vehicle with a childlike curiosity and wonderment as they approached. As though he had never seen a vehicle before. Nikki dismissed his behavior, thinking him to be a hermit they encountered with his disheveled appearance.

"Do you have an explanation for Mom about this when I show her just how _responsible_ you are?" Nikki asked, backing off as Nickolai opened the door.

"Would you put that away? You're supposed to be grounded for stealing that car!" Emily hissed at her.

"I didn't steal that car, I 'borrowed' it," the youth rolled her eyes. "And besides, you were supposed to be showing me your very important job for my school assignment. Mom said!" she watched as the strange man started to look around at the car.

"Same damn thing," Emily growled through gritted teeth, her patience clearly wearing down, just when a strong odor wafted under Nikki's nose.

"Hoofa! What died?" she complained. Holding her nose she scooted back until her back was up against the door.

"That would be the sulfur from the thermal vent," Nickolai explained. "We found our friend in an underground chamber not far from a thermal spring."

"You wouldn't believe me how we found him," Emily said, a note of excitement in her voice.

"And you wouldn't let me tag along?" Nikki retorted in a pouting tone.

"The place was crawling with volcanic and radioactive activity, it was unsafe. Your mother would kill me if I let you tag along only for you to get hurt in an unsafe environment," Emily warned.

Unable to handle the stench any longer, Nikki pulled her scarf up over her nose and eased out the other door before rounding the back of the vehicle to join her aunt. She was able to get a better look at their guest. He looked like a strange hermit they came across upon observation. She couldn't see what was so special about him.

"So who's the fuzzball?" she asked curiously, holding her phone for that perfect angle as she filmed him. He appeared to be very curious, poking and feeling along any surface as though it was all brand new to him.

Emily looked between their guest and Nickolai before answering. "We don't know."

###

As Emily's niece filmed them, the Norseman crouched around the Jeep, examining the wheel. "What is this material? It looks soft but it's firm to the touch."

Nickolai swallowed. Great. So much for his shock making him unobservant. He took a deep breath and said in English to Emily, "Water bottle and whatever snacks Nikki hasn't eaten yet."

Emily nodded and started to rummage through the rear storage and the cooler they'd brought with them. Nickolai turned back to the Norseman, who was examining the window glass with fascination.

Nickolai turned to Nikki. "Are you filming?"

"Uh, _yeah._ For my vlog," Nikki said belligerently. "God, where did you dig him up? He stinks." She sniffed. "_You_ stink!"

Nickolai burst out laughing.

"What?" Nikki asked.

"Remember that you asked that question later," Nickolai said, chortling. He pulled out his digital camera, which was still recording from before. He checked the battery and the status of the storage chip and found that they had enough capacity to get them back to the hotel. "In the meantime, can you record _him_ with this?"

Nikki took his camera and shrugged. "Sure, why not?"

"Good. Now, where's the satphone?"

"Uh... trunk, I think," Nikki said, and her usual belligerence was starting to give way to a cautious curiosity. "So... what gives?"

"Explain in a moment!" Nickolai said, and stepped quickly to the trunk, where Nikki had already made a significant dent in their supplies. Emily had given up on shoving the empty wrappers aside and was now stuffing them into a plastic bag.

"Satphone, satphone..." Nickolai repeated anxiously, looking for the hard plastic case buried somewhere under the detritus.

"What's this?" suddenly came from his right, and Nickolai and Emily both jumped as the Norseman appeared at the trunk gate, looking inward at the colorful mess that the teenager had left behind.

"Supplies," Nickolai said in Old Norse after a moment hunting for the word. "Food, water... other things."

"Provisions?" The Norseman looked quizzically at the bag Emily was holding. "Those are the _strangest_ provisions I've ever seen."

_I bet,_ Nickolai thought to himself, and Emily gave a cry of triumph as she found the cooler.

Popping it open, she pulled out a plastic bottle of water and a plastic wrapped sandwich and handed both to the Norseman.

He blinked. "Uh... thank you?"

While she couldn't understand his words, the tone was unmistakable. "Oh, sorry!" she said, and took back the bottle of water. Twisting off the cap, she handed it back to him, and then took the sandwich and unwrapped it.

Nickolai suddenly found himself praying that the Norseman wasn't allergic to salami, tuna, or eggs.

The Norseman looked at the sandwich with confusion—and then took a closer look at the bottle. His eyes widened. "The glass... it's _soft!_ How?"

Nickolai resisted the urge to turn and pound his head against the Jeep's side. Who was studying _who_ here!?

Instead, he said, "I'll explain later. Drink. Eat."

As the Norseman chowed down on his first meal in a thousand years, and making entertaining noises as he did so, Nickolai found the sat-phone. Pulling the cumbersome device out of the carrying case, he turned it on and watched as it went through the boot sequence and found a satellite.

Dialing the number he had for his Norwegian government contact, he was put on hold almost immediately.

"What's that?"

Nickolai managed to keep himself from jumping into the air and dropping the expensive satphone, but it was a near thing. He turned to see the Norseman, empty bottle of water in hand, standing only a few paces away. He held out the bottle, and said, "Your soft-glass waterskin is empty. Thank you." He eyed the satphone dangling in Nickolai's hand. "Your... tool there is making... _music?"_

And indeed, issuing from the speaker was some generic 'hold' music.

Nickolai moaned—and decided to take the offensive.

"Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?" Nickolai asked in Old Norse, motioning to Nikki to make sure she got this on recording. The teen, looking interested by dint of a lack of anything else to do, shrugged and gave a thumbs up.

The young man shook his head slowly.

"So... much has been lost over... over the years," he began, choosing his words carefully. He didn't want to push the Norseman into another fit of shock at the reminder of how long-lost his era was. "How your people lived... what they did, how they worshipped..."

The Norseman nodded. "You're a skald."

"A scholar, yes. Of your people. That's why I can speak your tongue."

The Norseman seemed to consider this. "Why do you want to know?"

Nickolai blinked. "Why?"

"Why study my people? You said it's been..." he swallowed, "a very... very long time. Why? Why study sticks and bones of a forgotten people?"

Nickolai looked at him and reached up to pat him on the shoulder.

"Think of it as a matter of..." Nickolai briefly paused, trying to search for the right word, "The pursuit of knowledge, and reconnecting to our roots for some," Nickolai looked pointedly towards Nikki who filmed the Norseman.

The Norseman glanced towards Nikki. Her scarf hung down around her shoulders, exposing her neck, and Nickolai could swear his eyes would pop out of his skull seeing how round they were.

"You keep thralls?" the Norseman sounded offended, which threw Nickolai for a curve. It was common practise for Norsemen to keep thralls. He then glanced over at Nikki and saw what he meant. The thick wire-and-chain choker she wore apparently looked like a thrall collar to the Norseman.

"Oh, no, no! Keeping thralls has long been abolished," Nickolai was quick to correct. "She chose to wear that collar. It's an uh, necklace." Nickolai watched as the Norseman looked at Nikki briefly, as though he was trying to understand why anyone would consider wearing such a thing for fashion. He hoped the fashion statement had not offended the Norseman too much.

"I don't understand. You said that she's from a land far to the West."

"Yes, but her family came from the Norselands, centuries later, and settled there."

"So... you look into the past... just to know?"

"To understand, to appreciate, to..." Nickolai searched for the word, "To _connect_ with those who came before. So that they're not forgotten. Our... our joint heritage, as mankind." Nickolai didn't mention those people who were going around _destroying_ Norse sites because, to their eyes, they were contaminated by alien influence in the form of the Asgardians. While contact with the Asgardians about this man was inevitable... _that_ shock could wait.

The Norseman glanced back to Nikki before he gave Nickolai a wary look. "Odin warns about such things. But, well, that never stopped me." He spread his arms in a shrug and glanced aimlessly to the side, clearly thinking over Nickolai's words. The gesture made his pants ride up a little bit, exposing the cuff of his prosthetic. No simple peg, it was a complex arrangement of metal and wood, likely containing a spring inside given how it bobbed up and down as he adjusted his weight.

"If I may ask, is that how you..." Nickolai gestured to his leg.

The Norseman looked down. "What, this old thing?" he lifted his left leg for Nickolai to get a better look and seemed to admire it himself. "A souvenir of a battle from when I was fifteen," the Norseman appeared proud of his wound as he smiled, and then it vanished. "Saved my people that day..."

Nickolai cleared his throat.

"So, right, questions," he prompted, trying to pull the Norseman away from obviously painful memories. He was going to have to focus purely on technical subjects, and avoid social topics that would undoubtedly conjure painful memories. "Well, for starters, one thing that is a topic of active debate was how the Norse navigated in the open sea. We know that you found a..." _latitude, latitude... what's the damn word..._ "line across the sea where the sun was at a given height above the horizon at noon and keep it there to travel east and west, but how would you be able to tell what height it was above the horizon on a cloudy day? Some of us scholars speculate that you used special stones—sunstones—to find it through the clouds. It would mean much if you could confirm it one way or another."

That question seemed to draw the Norseman away from whatever thoughts were consuming his mind as his shoulders rolled back.

"Well, the seafaring tribes in the archipelago do use sunstones as you described. But my tribe... we're uh… We're different from your _typical_ Vikings," the Norseman explained with a hint of hesitation to his tone.

Nickolai cocked a brow. The Norseman's tone was a mix of pride and hesitation. As though afraid to share a secret.

"Different _how?_" Nickolai asked, worried that the Asgardians had meddled somehow with the Norseman's tribe. As demonstrated by whatever it was that had preserved him for so long, they had at least some interest in his people directly.

"Uh... tell you later? I did just meet you," the Norseman said a bit warily. He reached for a compartment on his forearm and undid a latch. Pulling out something, he held out his hand to Nickolai.

"If it helps, I do use a sunstone."

Nickolai's eyes widened to see the clouded white crystal as the Norseman revealed it to him.

"You can't exactly explore without one. Whether you're on a ship, or... travelling in other ways."

Nickolai eyed the chunk of crystal in the Norseman's palm and reached out for it cautiously.

At that point, a voice came from the satphone. "Nick!? Nick, you there?"

Jumping almost as if he'd been burned, Nickolai held the satphone up to his ear. "Martin, oh god," he said in Norwegian.

"What? You sound like you've got marbles in your mouth, Nick."

Nickolai realized that he was still speaking the Old Norse dialect—or something half-way between it and modern Norwegian—and the Norseman was staring at him, eyes round, presumably fascinated by the voice in a language _very_ similar to his own emerging from a device he didn't understand.

Taking a deep breath, Nickolai said, "Remember that lead I mentioned? Up on Svalbard?"

"That internet rumor? Yeah. What about it?"

"Marty... I found... something." He glanced at the young man, who had clearly understood _that,_ and was looking a bit offended. "Scratch that, I found..." He swallowed, and tried to think of a way to juggle what he was about to say. "I found some_one._ Suffice it to say..." he glanced at the Norseman and realized that he, at least, knew who had put him in storage, "suffice it to say that our _recent immigrants_ left us a present from a thousand years ago."

"Wait, what? The Asgardians left something?"

Nickolai winced, and glanced at the Norseman. _Yep._ He'd caught that. Sighing, Nickolai said, "Yes. And given the expression on the _thousand-year-old Norseman's face_ at the moment, as he seems to be _rapidly_ figuring out how his language changed into _yours..._" Nickolai decided that the damage was done by now and said flatly, "Pull whatever strings you have to pull. We're coming to you, and we need to have an audience with Thor or Heimdall."

The Norseman's eyes were round.

"Nick, you're joking."

"No, I'm very definitely not. Emily and I found a twenty-year-old Norseman left in the middle of a tomb, complete with Stone Ship, on Svalbard, preserved with Asgardian tech and he's awake and giving me a very, _very_ curious look as to whom I'm talking to and how. I'll upload you the coordinates as soon as I hang up. You'll want to send a curatorial crew at the very least to secure the site against vandals and looters until the funding can be scared up for a proper dig."

"Did you say _Thor?!"_ the young man said in a very close approximation to Norwegian. "You know him? But then... why do you need _me_ to answer questions?"

Nickolai sighed. "It's a long story."

"Nick, Nick, I need a name at least. You know how they are about security since the assassination attempt," Martin said.

The young man glanced down at the empty holster on his thigh, and seemed to come to a decision. He took a deep breath, and said in heavily accented Norwegian, "Tell them... tell them that Hiccup Haddock wants to see them. That I spoke to Heimdall that day Hela's disguise broke, and he helped me save my people. And that I'm Thor's... nephew." This last came out as a whisper.

Now it was Nickolai's turn to stare with round eyes. But he repeated it, word for word, into the satphone.

Martin, his tone dubious, said, "I'll pass that along. Send me the coordinates and whatever photos your bandwidth can handle and I'll see about that curation crew."

"Will do. See you soon." Nickolai pressed the End button and hung up.

The Norseman stared at him. "What is going on?"

"That will take a lot of explaining. And I don't want to..." Nickolai paused, realizing that there was really no good way to tell the young man that he wanted to study him.

"Want to _what?_"

"I don't want to tarnish and taint your memories of your own life with modern life when there's so much to learn about how ordinary Norsemen lived a thousand years ago. History that we've lost. History that the beings you call gods didn't care about enough to record!" Nickolai said, starting slowly and ending with a near-yell.

The Norseman blinked and, bizarrely, a smile crossed his face. "Yeah, well, my people weren't very... _ordinary._ So where are we going?"

Nickolai blinked. He hadn't been expecting that response, but said in reply, "Oslo. It was founded... years after your time. But there, we should be able to get some answers."

Then, off to the side, Nikki burst in from behind the camera. "Hey, someone mind cluing the teenager in on what the _fuck_ is going on?!" she blurted in English.

###

Astrid strode out into the great hall, Snotlout at her side, and they were immediately greeted by a tumultuous roar of questions.

"Where's Hiccup!?"

"What happened to the sky!?"

"Where are we!?"

"What happened to the seas?"

She looked out across the assembled tribes and chiefs and swallowed against a lump of worry and fear in her throat. Getting them all here had been a trick and a half. In the handful of... _days_ since it had all happened—there were still chunks of Bewilderbeast ice outside that they were cleaning up—it had become clear that, whatever Hiccup had done, it had taken them... some... _place._

The sky flickered with the colors of the Bifrost during the day, and it gave light and warmth enough to keep the plants alive and cast shadows through a window, although the light came from everywhere, directionless and omnipresent. Well, except at night. In as much as they could _call_ it night. The first time it had happened, it had been terrifying. They'd watched as their island and the seas around it had apparently looped up into the sky as if on some giant funnel, and then, with all of them screaming, it had _plunged_—without the sense of them moving!—back down through the surface of the seas from elsewhere in the archipelago... only for them to pass through that surface, and find themselves in a darkened space that approximated night. The 'stars' above had been too few, but they'd found the reason for that—they were the _lights of the other villages, somehow suspended above them._

And 'dawn'...

Well, Astrid had flown up as high as she could on the third 'morning' to watch. And what she'd seen still boggled her mind.

The islands and water moved across the inside of a giant tube, the mouth of which admitted light... and 'dawn' broke when they reached the lip of the tube and flipped smoothly from the 'inside' to the 'outside', exposing them to the light of the Bifrost. 'Night' was when they reentered the 'inside' of the tube.

The shape of it made her head hurt trying to visualize it, and it made navigation between the islands nearly impossible. Or at least it would have been impossible if not for the dragons somehow being able to find their way. So they'd gone out and collected all of the chiefs of all of the tribes for this Thing.

They weren't happy.

She turned to Snotlout. "You're the interim chief," she said. "All yours."

He swallowed, stepped forward, and nodded to Dagur. "Yes?"

Dagur crossed his arms and said, "Snot. Where's Hiccup, and what the Hel happened?"

Snotlout paused, clearly thinking hurriedly, and Astrid sighed. Stepping forward, she spoke. "Hel is _exactly_ what happened. Hela manifested near Berk and tried to take control of our dragons and kill us all. Hiccup stopped her, by apparently praying to Heimdall to send the Bifrost to take us out of her reach. He listened... and sent us here. Hiccup's outside this... bubble and promised that he'd find a way to get us back out when it was safe."

And there it was. Not a single untruth.

Just not the whole truth.

The assembled chiefs murmured—and then someone burst out laughing.

"What do you take us for?" Thuggory of the Meatheads cried. "Credulous fools?"

Bertha of the Bog Burglars turned and gave the younger chief a flat look. "Have you failed to look at the sky in the last few days? Or is your head actually made of meat?"

There were titters through the crowd.

Bertha and her heir, Camicazi, looked to Astrid. "How long will it take him to undo this?"

Astrid sighed. "We have no idea. It was a bit... crazy, even by his standards."

There were more titters—a bit hysterical in tone this time.

"So we're stuck here?" Thuggory demanded.

"No! He'll find a way to get us back to Midgard!" Snotlout insisted.

They continued to argue and explain, but the bare facts of it didn't change.

They were stuck here until Hiccup could come and get them out.

Eventually, there was acceptance—some understanding, some grudging, and even a few that were excited about it all.

Finally, though, Snotlout said, "We're all in this together, and we'll get out of it together. We'll keep messages going through Terror Mail, and if there are any problems, we'll deal with them and help each other out! It's what Hiccup would want us to do!"

"And if we don't behave, will he leave us here?" Thuggory asked petulantly.

Snotlout sneered at him. "Why don't you try something and find out?"

They stared at each other for a moment, until Thuggory looked away.

Astrid breathed a sigh of relief. No war today...

Then another excited voice called out. "You said that Hiccup spoke to the gods! And they listened! How? Why?"

Astrid swallowed, and looked at the speaker. One of the Bog women in Cami's entourage, her eyes shining with fervency. Thankfully, though, Snotlout managed to keep to their intended statements, instead of giving the pretty woman a _full_ answer. "Hela had come to take our dragons for an attack on Asgard itself. Heimdall saw this and when Hiccup asked for help, he answered."

There were more murmurs at this, and then one of Thuggory's men spoke up. "We need to give thanks to the gods for saving us from Hela's wrath! I propose a special _blot_ at..." he glanced at the door and the swirling colors outside, "Well, I was going to say 'Midsummer,' but I do not even know if this part of Yggdrasil's Roots _has_ seasons!"

"Have it be in two months! We shall have a grand _blot_ to the gods in thanks and gratitude for their rescue!" called the Bog woman, her voice ecstatic. "That gives us all time to prepare proper sacrifices in thanks!"

There was a murmur of agreement across the room—and then Dagur spoke up. "Where will we have this grand sacrifice?"

"Here on Berk, where else?" the Meathead replied—and Astrid didn't miss the aghast look Thuggory gave his man. "It is clearly blessed by the gods!"


	4. Threshold Crossed

The doggie looked so soft... Hiccup toddled on unsteady legs towards the large animal, almost willing it to be soft and pettable...

"Hiccup!"

A strong hand, almost as large as his entire body, reached down and pulled him back, and the dog, startled, barked and growled.

Hiccup, at three, stared at the dog as it snapped its jaws, and the trader hauled back on its leash.

"Hiccup! You can't... what... son, be more careful!" Stoick scolded.

Looking into his Dada's eyes, Hiccup cried. He wanted to pet the doggie! His Dada had scared it!

"Hiccup! You could have been hurt!" Stoick held him out at arm's length and said softly, "And you're all I have left of your mother..."

Hiccup blinked and patted his Dada's hand. "Dada miss Mommy?"

Stoick sniffed. "Aye, son. I do. Be more careful, all right?"

"'Kay, Dada!"

Stoick, still sniffing slightly, put Hiccup down on his feet gently, like the mountain of a man that he was, and Hiccup blinked.

He was six. He and his father were in the woods, a small quiver across his back, a small bow in his hands, his father holding a bigger one in his own.

"All right, son, now, pull the arrow back to your cheek... like this..."

Hiccup awkwardly nocked the arrow and drew it back, his arms shaking with the effort.

"Alright, son. Now... see if you can hit one..."

Stoick threw a rock into the nearby bushes, and it practically exploded with fleeing birds.

Hiccup, startled, let go of the arrow, and it flew off and hit a tree—not a bird.

Stoick grinned. "Eh, it's not a bird, but it's a start." He walked over to the tree, and, as he was pulling the arrow loose, Hiccup went and looked for trolls. He knew that some of them were around here. They kept stealing Uncle Gobber's socks.

He went through another bush and saw a bird nearby, hopping along, and he coo'ed at it.

The bird turned and looked at him.

He made another coo'ing noise at it.

The bird hopped over in his direction.

"Son!?" Stoick bellowed at the top of his lungs—and the bird, startled, burst into flight and swooped at Hiccup's head, leaving a painful peck in his hair.

"Ow! Hey, stop it!"

Hiccup held his hands up around his head, trying to keep the bird off, but it was pecking at him and aiming for his eyes.

"Son!" Stoick burst through the bush, bow in hand, and an instant later, the bird was skewered with an arrow.

Hiccup looked at it, aghast, as it flapped its last and turned to look at his father to protest, but Stoick scooped him up. "You're bleeding! Son, are you all right?"

"I'm okay, Dad," Hiccup said, still looking at the dead bird sadly, but his father was holding him and he could feel the warm blood seeping into his hair. He remembered seeing the claws heading for his face and shuddered. His dad had saved him... like his dad did... like he always did.

"Thanks, Dad," Hiccup said, and hugged his father close, relishing in the warmth and solidity of his dad's broad chest. He knew that his dad would protect him, would always protect him.

Stoick fussed over him for another moment and then put him down to look at his head properly, setting him down carefully, like he could break, and Hiccup blinked.

He was nine. Snotlout and the twins had tricked him into the woods for a prank—and now he was holding onto a tree for dear life, an angry boar squealing in fury as it tried to knock him out of the tree.

He hauled himself up to the first branch and watched the giant pig—eight feet long and with tusks that could gut a man—hammer itself against the tree, which groaned with each impact.

"Hey! Ugly!" a voice boomed in challenge, and Hiccup looked up across the small clearing to see his father, a boar spear in hand, standing there, red-faced and looking like he'd just run flat out. But even as he puffed for breath, he roared and the boar roared back.

"Dad! Look out!"

The boar charged, and Hiccup watched, terrified, as the tons of angry pig ran at his father, who set his spear barely in time. The boar impaled itself on the weapon, enraged and wanting to gore Hiccup's father with its tusks, and only the stout crossbar halfway down the spear kept it from literally hauling itself down the weapon that was killing it to do exactly that to Stoick. It roared and thrashed...

And died.

It had barely stopped twitching when Stoick threw it and the spear aside and ran over to the tree. "Hiccup, jump down!" he called, and held out his hands.

Hiccup didn't hesitate and leapt into his father's arms as the rest of the rescue party came running up into the clearing, panting. As they exclaimed over the size of the boar—apparently the largest seen on Berk in ages, with people speculating that it must have swum in from another island—Hiccup clutched at his father, shaking like a leaf at how close he'd come to dying.

"It's okay, son. It's okay. I'm here," Stoick said, rocking him back and forth.

Hiccup knew it. His father was there. Always.

As Uncle Spitelout called, Stoick turned and walked over to the boar. They picked it up by the spear and hauled it back to the village, Hiccup still held in his father's arms the whole way. Snotlout and the twins were relieved that he wasn't dead, and hid it through some teasing, as Hiccup was still held in his father's arms.

As they handed the boar off to the kitchens, Stoick looked at his blood-soaked tunic and shook his head. Hiccup was sat down and blinked. He was fifteen. It was the middle of a dragon raid; a Nightmare had just toasted the front of his house, and he was running to the smithy to help.

Another dragon sprayed a burst of flames right where he was running, and he was hauled back by a massive hand, who held him, dangling "Hiccup! What is he doing out? What are you doing out? Get inside!"

Stoick set him down half-gently, and Hiccup ran off to the smithy. After Gobber chided him and then ran off himself, he got the Mangler and went up to the high cliffs...

"Did anybody see that?"

A growl from behind him made his guts turn to water. "Aside from you."

He screamed and ran as the Nightmare gave pursuit, and hid behind one of the signal fire posts, which the Nightmare burned—but right before it could attack him, his father came charging in and tackled the dragon out of the way. His father punched it until it fled... and then the signal fire, the beam burned, collapsed, and the dish at the top rolled away, setting the captured Nadders free. They watched the dragons fly off with their supplies in silence for a moment, and then Hiccup said, "Okay, but I hit a Night Fury."

Stoick reached over and picked Hiccup up by the back of his vest. As Hiccup stammered out explanations, they walked to the edge of the crowd, and Stoick set him down. "Stop!"

Hiccup blinked. He was twenty...

And his best friend was lurching towards him, his eyes narrowed to slits.

"Toothless! Toothless! Come on bud!"

And Stoick came running up... and tackled him out of the way...

And Hiccup blinked—and woke.

###

With a scream of "No!" Hiccup thrashed, coming out of the doze that he'd fallen into, despite his own fascination with the vehicle. Panic drove his limbs and he thrashed about, not seeing the cart, or the seat in front of him, or the screaming young woman trying to hold him down. He just saw his father's motionless body... dead because of him.

The belaying line snapped free of the cart as he spasmed in panic, and in the next moment, he was flying through the air...

Without Toothless.

He hit the dirt next to the strange road with a thud, and the cart came to a halt with a high pitched squeal, screaming coming from inside.

Hiccup lay on the ground, stunned, staring up at the blue sky and white clouds.

Memories of flying through clouds like those came unbidden to his mind...

And he burst into tears as he remembered Astrid's arms around him.

She was gone too. Long gone. Ashes on the wind, bones on the earth.

A thousand years gone...

He barely heard the footsteps as someone ran up to him, and the man—Nickolai, he'd introduced himself—came into view.

"Hiccup!? Are you all right? What's broken? Where are you hurt?" he asked, concerned.

Hiccup shook his head. "I'm all right," he said, wheezing from having had the wind knocked out of him.

Nickolai looked disbelieving. "Hiccup, you just jumped out of my vehicle, which was going a hundred kilometers an hour, and flew nearly a hundred meters through the air!"

Hiccup blinked and hauled himself upright on his hands and wrists. "What's a 'kilometer' and 'meter'?" he asked, rolling the unfamiliar words around in his mouth.

"Units of measure. Come on, what's broken?"

Hiccup pulled himself to his feet. "Nothing. See?" he twisted a bit to show that nothing was broken, even as Emily came running up, carrying a large white case with a red cross emblazoned on it, her eyes wide and panicked. She grabbed him with such firmness that he went with it out of sheer surprise, as she started patting him down in a quick and oddly detached manner. She asked something to Nickolai, who repeated it to Hiccup.

"Where does it hurt?"

"I... it hurts a _little,_ but not like I broke anything. Promise," Hiccup said as Emily finished checking over his arms and legs for anything broken and then stood back to give him a befuddled look.

"Then why are you crying?" Nickolai asked gently.

The memory of Astrid hit him like a punch to the gut, and Hiccup whuffed out a breath and clenched back tears. "Because... because I remembered my betrothed."

Nickolai blinked and said something to Emily. Her expression softened and she embraced him. He didn't need to understand the words to get the meaning.

_There there. It's okay._

He shook his head and pushed her back. He could feel his grief building, but he'd cried his tears on the tree when he'd believed that he was going to die. While he liked the skald and the healer and the girl—barely younger than he'd been when he'd shot down Toothless—he didn't know them... and after his epic mistake with Drago... he was reluctant to trust them.

First, he needed to find Heimdall. His whole self was latched onto that goal. He had to know what had happened to his people after the Bifrost had taken them away. That thin, slender hope was all that held back the mounting waves of grief at finding himself castaway on the ocean of time.

Taking a deep breath, he said to Nickolai, "Let's return to your cart and keep going. We're not accomplishing anything standing around here."

Nickolai, his expression dubious, nodded and led the way back.

Hiccup opened the door using the clever latch and winced.

"Oops." There were visible dents in the finely cushioned seat... the floor... and the side of the cart, and the belaying line's belt was frayed and snapped.

The girl, Nikki, was giving him a wide-eyed stare, and shrank back against the far door as he cautiously re-entered. The top of the cart, covered in some of that thick oily cloth, had burst along some seam during his exit—but thankfully it was apparently a designed seam. He watched in awe as, after a bit of fumbling and resetting, they used a small pull-latch to lace the two rows of fine metal teeth back together. It was all Hiccup could do to keep himself from sitting up and examining it to see how it worked. The precision and evenness was amazing...

As he examined it, there was a brief discussion between the girl and Emily, and when Nickolai started the vehicle up again—it involved some sort of fine metal key inserted into the base of the wheel that he used to direct the cart—Emily was sitting next to Hiccup in the rear seats, while Nikki was seated up front.

Hiccup was about to ask why... but then he eyed the broken belaying strap and dented seat and realized that the girl didn't feel safe next to him.

And he couldn't blame her for that, honestly.

Hiccup instead affixed his attention back onto the strange pull-clasp invention. He had tried to reach back up to inspect it, standing up as he did so, only for Emily to quickly grab him by the arm and he heard shouts of shock and panic. She had made a quick tamping gesture with her hand, and Hiccup didn't need to understand that meant _sit down_. Hiccup pulled his arms back as he sat back down, watching as Emily reached around him and observed the torn belaying lines. That was quickly solved by tying them around his waist.

Hiccup gazed up hearing an outburst from Nikki in the front as she and Nickolai got into a heated discussion. Before he could ask what was wrong, a colorful burlap sack was shoved in his face.

"What's this for?" Hiccup took the sack and tilted it this way and that, inspecting it curiously as his fingers caressed the strange fabric. It wasn't wool, or wicker, or fine silk.

"To keep you busy. You can't stand up in the vehicle, Hiccup. This isn't a ship," Nickolai warned, his tone worried. "Don't want you falling out again."

Hiccup averted his gaze and mumbled apologetically, "Sorry," before his attention was back onto the burlap sack. Around the top of the sack were several smaller rows of the pull-clasp seam and Hiccup immediately busied himself with trying to figure it out. Breaking down how it felt in his head and wondering if he couldn't replicate it.

Busying himself with the idea was better than the thought of... what he'd lost.

He quickly found that the seams came in several sizes and were fully integrated into the rucksack. Not wanting to invade the girl's privacy, he settled for examining the pull-clasp and teeth. A small bump on the end of each tooth and a matching indentation on the following tooth told him how they meshed together so neatly, although he was impressed with the uniformity and fineness of the finish of the metal. He held the clasp up to his eye and made a noise of realization.

"What?" Nickolai asked from the front seat.

"I see how it works! Two wedges force the teeth together when pulled this way, and a third wedge splits them apart when pulled the other way!"

"That's quite an eye you have. Are you a smith?" Nickolai asked intently.

"I made this," Hiccup pointed to his leg, "this," he indicated his suit, "and several other things... back in my time," Hiccup admitted carefully.

Nickolai made a strangled sound of excitement. "You're a craftsman, not just a blacksmith?"

"Yes," Hiccup trailed off as he looked up and could see that they were coming up on a cluster of buildings at the end of the long road they were travelling on in the distance, a snowcapped mountain on the other side of a fjord dwarfing the manmade structures. "Where are we?"

Hiccup figured he must have hit a nerve with the skald, hearing a muffled sound of annoyance coming from him. He seemed to do that a lot and Hiccup found it mildly entertaining. "You'll soon see," came Nickolai's reply.

For Hiccup, soon couldn't come any faster. Other carts—in several colors—joined them on the road. Hiccup looked out and up as several colorful homes came into view on the slope above the road as below, what looked like human-sized cages stretched the length of the road. Hiccup squinted his eyes and was relieved to see dogs barking excitedly behind the strange metal cages. His attention drew back up to the colorful homes which were uniform in shape, but not size or length. They were similar to the long homes that the Bog Burglars lived in.

"Do people still live in long homes?" Hiccup asked curiously, eyeing a green metal container on the side of the road as they moved past it.

"Something like that," came Nickolai's reply.

Still more arcane devices flew by—more fae-lights on wooden poles, and odd, metal-sided buildings with bright signs and strange vehicles arranged in a row out in front. Some of them looked sleek, like they were made to go fast, with small glass shields that were clearly there for the rider to hunch down behind. He pointed. "What are those?"

Nickolai paused, gently pounded his head on the strange wheel once, and said, "They're snowmobiles. They use the same power as this vehicle for driving over snow."

"Oh. I see. So the belts along the underside are for grabbing at the snow and pulling themselves along? Clever!"

A massive building came up on the left next, and Hiccup had to keep himself from lying across Emily to stare at it. It was filled with glass windows, including the angled section that looked almost like the upturned prow of a ship, with metal stairs leading up to it.

This place was amazing. They soon passed through the town and the road opened up wider, and Hiccup could see several more carts parked in rows as they approached another set of buildings, the mountain opposite them on the other side of the fjord giving a dramatic backdrop to the view.

Hiccup paused and for a moment, his heart clenched.

He'd been here before. He recognized that mountain and this fjord. Back... then, this place had been a _longphort,_ where a few traders put in for supplies. He and Toothless had played in the snow atop that mountain... Astrid had pummeled him with a snowball.

A sign flew past, and Hiccup blinked, pushing the memories back down. Heimdall. He needed to talk to Heimdall. He'd been preserved for a thousand years. Maybe so had they...

But seeing the mountaintop where he and his friends had frolicked a thousand years before brought it home in a way that made that last bit of denial crumble.

He was so very, very far from home...

They pulled up to the buildings and—once his belaying lines were untied and he was standing on a smaller side road—Hiccup marveled at their sheer size, which dwarfed him. With their provisions and equipment unloaded, Emily had taken the cart—to return it, apparently; from what he'd gotten from Nickolai, it was rented—while Nickolai and Nikki waited outside the buildings with Hiccup, who wanted to explore them. He figured something big must be inside.

Nickolai had taken a deep breath and said, "Hiccup, you're about to witness a modern miracle."

Hiccup looked to Nickolai, the skald seemed hesitant about this big miracle he spoke of. He was sure it couldn't be any more curious than his miraculous driving cart.

"Modern inventors have made flight possible, and we're about to take a flying airship to the mainland," Nickolai explained slowly.

Hiccup couldn't help but to laugh, "Is that all? I know what it's like to fly."

Before Hiccup could realize what he had said, he could see Nickolai's eyes grow wide and he mouthed _How? _

Damage done, Hiccup quickly scrambled for an explanation that didn't entail revealing flying on the backs of dragons. Then it dawned on him that he was wearing the answer. Hiccup reached up and released the spring-loaded coil. The dorsal fin sprang up on his back, which startled the others.

Hiccup turned and pointed to his back, "This is one of my inventions, it's a flight suit. I have hidden wings tucked away on my sides," Hiccup explained and continued to point out the loops on his legs, "I just thread my arms through these when I'm high enough, and the wind carries me."

Nickolai broke from his trance-like stare and began to poke at the spring-loaded dorsal fin. "How did you, _how_?" was all he could manage to say in his baffled shock.

Hiccup smiled as the skald explored his suit with amazement. Then his eyes narrowed. "How do you stop?"

"Stop?"

"Land safely. We have bird-suits like these at present... but the wearers need a fall-screen..." he paused. "That's the modern word. Um... a sheet of silk carried in a rucksack on the back and released to slow you down when you're approaching the ground."

Hiccup blinked. "Uh... I aimed myself at ship-sails and caught myself on them," he said, not mentioning that he had a friend with wings that would catch him in mid-air.

Nickolai winced.

Hiccup grinned.

Nickolai put on a brave face after a moment, and waved him towards one of the large buildings as he reround the coil spring, drawing the dorsal fin down against his back. "Well, here we have our _air-vessels_," he said, the word sounding distorted and odd, and Hiccup immediately pegged it as another one of the modern words from whatever language Norse had become. "This one is small, but it's big enough to get us back to the mainland in a few hours. I talked with my friend, and while... things are complicated for you, as, well, you officially don't exist yet, we'll be able to fly you there."

Hiccup quirked an eyebrow. "What do you mean, I don't exist?"

Nickolai sighed. "It's complicated, but essentially, none of the kingdoms and nations of the world know who you are—aside from the Asgardians. Through no fault of your own, you have essentially become outcast, as you have no clan or kin... besides them."

Hiccup's eyes widened, and then he nodded. "I see. So since I'm not affiliated with them, they don't know that I exist, so they don't know why I should be let in?"

Nickolai nodded. "Exactly. But we'll fix that soon."

Emily came up, her posture hunched and angry. As she spoke, Hiccup listened, and started to pick up more vocabulary. It was confusing a bit, but it generally made sense. The cart was either a 'car' or a 'jeep', and he'd damaged it, a thought that made him run his hands through his hair sheepishly.

Then the distance-talker device chimed and Nickolai's friend said in that bizarrely accented and distorted Norse that he'd arranged clearance for Hiccup.

And with that, they entered the 'air port'—Hiccup having spotted a sign written in that strange not-Norse, but with the letters being from the Latin alphabet that he was passingly familiar with from books and such.

There were benches and people and the floors were polished wood, which presented some difficulty for his prosthetic—his leg shot out from beneath him the moment he stepped on the polished wood and he had instinctively grabbed onto Nickolai to stop himself from falling. They made their way across the first room, with him clinging onto Nickolai, who offered him support. His prosthetic slipped out from beneath him with every step, making him appear as graceful as an uncoordinated kitten. Trying not to fall, Hiccup's attention was on the floor, specifically, his prosthetic. Eventually, they came to stand on some sort of sticky cloth on the floor and Hiccup found he could stand upright without a problem. Feeling confident, he lifted his gaze and what he saw he was not ready for.

The room was bright. Bright as day. There were fae-lights lined along the walls, in the ceilings, and strange crates glowed as though powered with the fae-light. It was as if he had stepped into Álfheimr. Hiccup's eyes were wide as he observed his new surroundings. The room, despite the disorienting bright fae-lights, was much smaller than when he first looked at the building outside. Then he watched as people walked through doors with glass windows into another section. He figured the building was sectioned off into other rooms. Hiccup had hardly noticed Nickolai talking to him as he looked around the room.

Nickolai nudged Hiccup and he blinked, looking to Nickolai. "I know it's a lot to take in, but we need to go this way," and taking Hiccup's arm, led him across the slick polished floor. Hiccup made a mental note to upgrade his prosthetic again when he had the chance—possibly with some of that material from the strange cloth. He looked up and watched as two large men waved them off to the side. One of the men—he'd figured they must have been of importance as they wore matching clothing—was dark skinned, very much like Heimdall, and Hiccup was very curious.

"You lot must be the ones with special clearance to Oslo, yes?" one of the men asked as they approached.

Hiccup leaned to Nickolai and said, "I don't understand. I've only ever seen Heimdall with such dark skin. I thought only the gods were colorful."

Nickolai made a strange sound and Hiccup quirked a brow.

He watched as Nickolai quickly turned to the dark skinned man. "You'll have to forgive my friend. He's uh," a long pause, probably thinking up an excuse. "He doesn't get out much."

"I was not speaking Norse?" Hiccup asked curiously. He had not realized he had grown used to this new tongue and wasn't aware of how to switch back and forth.

Hiccup felt guilty seeing Nickolai shake his head. It was painful enough he had learned he was an outcast, clanless, and now he feared he may have ruined his chance of going mainland due to an honest mistake.

Hiccup turned to the guard. "Please forgive me. I did not mean anything rude by it."

The dark-skinned guard seemed amused by his curiosity as a pearly white smile split his lips. "Perhaps your friend should visit Wakanda," the man suggested with a hearty laugh.

"Perhaps another time," Nickolai said.

"What is _Wakanda_?" Hiccup asked curiously, finding the strange word difficult to pronounce as he looked between Nickolai and the man.

"It is one of the kingdoms I've told you about, but it is not on our route," Nickolai explained.

The other guard had cleared his throat and the outgoing man quickly became focussed. Hiccup wasn't sure if it was what he had said as the two conversed with Nickolai.

His attention drifted away as he looked up to see a black slate with moving paintings hanging from the columns. It too glowed with the power of the fae-lights. He watched, wondering how such a creation could work. It wasn't as easy to understand as the pull-clasp seam. Hiccup's eyes grew wider as the moving paintings suddenly switched over: A modern day human was holding up a strange object and talking into it, but there was no sound to the image. Beside them stood a woman who looked Norse in his eyes. The moving paintings suddenly and violently moved very fast, panic unmistaken in the movement, making Hiccup disoriented trying to follow with his eyes. It was as if he was looking through the eyes of another. The violent movement soon calmed and focussed on a strange stone path. The Norsewoman was on the ground and the modern human was helping the Norsewoman up back to her feet.

"I don't understand," Hiccup said, turning back to Nickolai, and pointed to the black slate on the column. Nickolai glanced up, looking at the slate but by that time the moving paintings had changed.

"Oh, Hiccup," Nickolai groaned. "That's going to be difficult to explain."

"Are there any weapons on any of you?" one of the guards—the lighter skin-toned man asked and Hiccup blinked seeing the deadpan accusing stare from the guard he received.

"Give him your dagger, Hiccup," Nickolai said gently.

"What? No," Hiccup backed up as far as he could on the sticky cloth.

"Hiccup, it's okay. It's just for safety," Nickolai promised.

Hiccup scowled; he didn't like the idea of being disarmed... remembering how he'd blithely handed himself and Astrid over to Eret's crew only... well, a thousand years ago and days before. The thought of what might have happened with Drago if his stupid plan had gone through was enough to send a cold shiver up his spine now. It was bad enough that he didn't have Inferno.

Hiccup could feel his prosthetic threatening to slip from underneath him as he reached the end of the sticky floor cloth. Glancing up at the guards, he saw how one of them had pulled out what appeared to be another distance talker, judging by how he was speaking through it. It was much bulkier than Nickolai's, though… who was visibly growing more nervous by the second. His hands were raised in a calming gesture, skin pale, as he anxiously approached Hiccup.

"Hiccup, it's fine. You will get the dagger back when we land in Oslo. It's just so someone else won't use it to harm others," Nickolai explained slowly.

Hiccup blinked and pulled out his dagger. Memories of first gaining Toothless' trust flashed behind his eyes. He looked up at the men and could see they shared the same distrust in their eyes as Toothless had. He held his dagger so that he hopefully didn't look like he was going to attack. He swallowed and asked, "I will get it back?"

Nickolai nodded.

"Promise?"

"You have my word," Nickolai nodded again.

Hiccup looked at the only thing he could defend himself with; even if it made sense as a show of good faith, it hurt a bit. He looked up at the guards who seemed tense. Clenching his eyes shut he whuffed out a sigh. Reluctantly, he held his dagger, hilt first, out for the guards to take, flinching as the weight of the dagger left his fingers.

"You'll be fine, Hiccup. No one uses swords these days." Nickolai placed a hand on his shoulder and led him forward as they met back up with the women on the other side of the wall.

"I don't like this. It doesn't feel right," Hiccup complained.

"In a few hours you'll have your dagger back, as promised," Nickolai reassured him with a pat on the arm.

The trip to the dock was less tricky; by sticking to the odd patches of sticky cloth, he could get along well enough without Nickolai's help.

Turning the corner, Hiccup looked around with wide eyes. A wall of glass was at the end of the indoor dock, and rows and rows of seats which seated some people who were also waiting for the airship. Paintings that looked like they were windows to the outside adorned the walls and in another room, off to the side, what looked like a merchant stand selling strange and colorful provisions and other items.

"This way," Nickolai took him by the arm and lead him up to the glass wall. He pointed out and Hiccup gaped up in wonder. A large metal beast sat nearest the neighboring indoor dock and a procession line of people were waiting to board while others were disembarking. "We will be riding in an air-vessel just like that one."

Hiccup looked to the road leading up to their indoor dock which was empty. "When will our airship dock?"

Before Nickolai could answer, a voice from… nowhere spoke up loud and clear, in that strange language Nickolai called Norwegian.

"Now Arriving, Scandinavian Airlines Flight SK-Four-Four-Nine-Six, from Oslo. Disembarkment will be at Gate One in ten minutes."

Then, it repeated itself in several other languages, one of which he recognized hearing Emily and Nikki speak. While the disembodied voice spoke, Hiccup looked around for the source, but found nothing that obviously leapt out at him. As he looked, he noticed that he was drawing odd stares from the weary travellers waiting in their seats, especially the children, whose parents were gathering their things.

"Sounds like our air-vessel is coming in for a landing now," Nickolai smiled and pointed to the left. "Keep your eyes open."

Hiccup watched, and squinted as he scanned the sky. As Nickolai had promised, the airship was circling for a landing. Hiccup felt the hair on the back of his neck standing up. The image of the great metal ship triggered a memory of facing off with the Red Death. It was nowhere near the size of the Alpha dragon they'd faced... and it wasn't a dragon, either.. But Hiccup had to tamp down on his rising fear, even as he recognized it as irrational. But things had changed so much...

To reassure himself, he looked over to the people boarding the airship at the nearby dock. He could clearly see that they were unafraid, calm, bored even, as they climbed up metal stairs to enter into the body of the large vessel. Motion caught his eye, and he could see the new airship coming in to land; the wings were swept back and massive wheels were extended down below it, which touched the road with a slight bounce. But at the speed it was still going, Hiccup wondered if it wouldn't overshoot the 'air port'—which, of course, explained the need for the long road for it to land on. It eventually came to a halt, and another cart went out to it and, like a galley-tug in a crowded harbor, hitched itself to the front wheel and guided the air-vessel in to a dock, while another set of crew came up with the big metal stairs, which were mounted on wheels.

His inspection was interrupted by Nickolai nudging him, and the pair of them turned and walked to rejoin Emily and Nikki at the line to board.

Once outside, Hiccup was relieved to be back on a surface that his leg could grip, but the relief was short-lived as they approached the intimidating ship; it was far longer than any longship he'd been on, he noted with wide eyes.

It didn't take long until Hiccup found himself before the metal stairs. He did not expect the ship to be intimidating up close but he felt his heart racing.

_Come on, you've flown on Toothless a thousand-thousand times before._ Hiccup swallowed and looked at the length of the ship. _But never _in _something that flew… _

"Are you alright, Hiccup?" Nickolai asked from behind.

Hiccup blinked. _You're a Viking about to embark on an adventure and witness new things. If they're not afraid, you shouldn't be afraid._ Hiccup quickly bobbed his head before finally taking that first timid step up the stairs. With each metallic clink of his prosthetic on the stairs it became more and more difficult to breathe. Even looking back at the line wasn't calming his growing fears. Yet somehow, Hiccup crested the stairs and crossed the threshold into the cabin.

He entered the ship and looked around; seeing people relaxed and taking their seats was comforting and he began to relax. Just like with the buildings, size was deceiving.

"This way," Nickolai urged Hiccup forward and lead him past rows and rows of seats to theirs. Once he was belted in, Hiccup tried to relax. It took awhile for everyone to get settled, but then they were off.

The ship whirred to life and hummed as though it were purring. Hiccup must have been more anxious than he realized as he felt a gentle reassuring squeeze of his hand from Emily, who sat beside him. He glanced to the armrest which sported indentions the shape of fingers and he winced. He smiled in gratitude and looked out the window on the other side of Nikki. They didn't start up as quickly as the car, Hiccup had noted. Only slowly, the ship began to move forward. The purring grew louder, vibrating through him. Just like the car, the ship also proved to be very similar to riding on dragonback but without the wind stinging your face and whipping through your hair. A sensation Hiccup longed to feel once again. He wondered if humanity made these vehicles to emulate something long lost to them, and guilt weighed heavily on him.

The flight proved to be long, and Hiccup couldn't sit still for very long despite the world zipping by just outside the window. His eyes and fingers wandered, wanting to explore what he could within his space.

After a brief discussion between Nickolai and Nikki in their tongue, the girl reluctantly tapped Hiccup's hand to draw his attention. Seeing how she was so hesitant about interacting with him, he felt guilty for scaring her earlier. But she snapped her fingers at him to pay close attention and pointed to a much smaller black slate on the headboard in front of him. His eyes widened as he watched her turn the fae-light powered slate on and began to poke it. He reached up, wanting to touch the window of the slate—his curiosity growing with every finger swipe—but jerked back when something popped up on the window. Nikki sniggered, and Hiccup absently thought how he apparently hadn't scared her _that_ much after all. He glanced over at her, smiling before looking back at the slate window. She proceeded to show him what to do with it, pointing to a ball on his window. Hiccup gaped watching her flick the ball which disappeared off the window. She again tapped him and pointed to her slate window, the ball on his window having magically appeared on hers. She flicked it back to him with the swipe of her fingertip.

"Magic!" Hiccup exclaimed excitedly as he watched the ball bounce around his slate and immediately flicked the ball—remembering to restrain his strength—across his slate back over to Nikki's. He was entranced by its simplicity.

This rapport continued until Nikki grew bored and showed him interactive magic that he could do on his own, which kept him happily entertained. His attention was soon pulled away from the magical fae-light slate when Emily had helped him with a beverage that was being passed out. Nickolai called it a _milkshake_. It was a strange and wondrous taste, new like everything else.

At one point during the flight, Nikki began unpackaging one of those strange provisions he had seen in their jeep. He watched curiously and was surprised when she offered him a piece of her provision.

"What is it?" he asked as he plucked a small nugget from her provision and looked it over. Wondering just what it was made from.

"It's what we call _chocolate_," Nickolai looked over, pointing that strange object of his at him once again.

"Chocolate…" Hiccup repeated thoughtfully and lifted the small morsel up to his nose, smelling it before he tucked it into his mouth.

Hiccup had not expected the taste to be strong and sharp and he gagged the moment he bit into it.

"You all right?" Nickolai sounded worried.

"Yeah," Hiccup choked, his tongue lolling out of his mouth in disgust. "Wasn't expecting it to be so... bitter."

Nickolai seemed to be relieved and chuckled at his suffering as he translated to the girls what was wrong. Soon they were chuckling as well.

The plane began to descend and Emily handed Hiccup a strange contraption. He looked it over in confusion.

"We're coming in for a landing in Oslo and will be passing near New Asgard. Just out your window." Nickolai said. Immediately, Nikki shifted in her seat to point her distance-talker at the window excitedly.

Hiccup was fascinated by the device which Nickolai called 'binoculars'. They were very similar to his spyglass—and, after a brief examination, he discovered that it was essentially two of his spyglasses harnessed together with a hinge. He put his face up to the eyepieces and looked around the cabin. He could see others were also leaning against the left side of the airship, peering out the window, and pointing and chatting excitedly. He suddenly felt a firm but gentle hand grab him by the crown of his head and was gently aimed to the window. That was when he saw it in the distance.

It was just out of comfortable viewing range—even with the strange spyglasses—but he could almost make out another airship, blocky and blue, on the island settlement, large enough that it appeared to shadow the buildings. The buildings looked primitive and simplistic from afar, very similar to what he has seen on Berserk or even Caldera Cay with just a hint of color that helped them stand out.

"Why can't we get closer? I need a good shot for my documentary!" Nikki complained at his elbow in that strange language of hers, which he was beginning to understand and pick apart. He had no clue what a 'documentary' was, though.

"It's restricted airspace. They are protected so idiots won't try and pick a fight with them. Politics are a bit… difficult right now." Nickolai explained.

"Just another fine example of the village idiot sticking it to the little guy…" Nikki sighed.

"Well, Hiccup? What do you think of New Asgard?" Nickolai asked.

"I thought Asgard was elsewhere, not on Midgard," Hiccup frowned.

"It was, but they're now refugees seeking a simple life on Earth." Nickolai said.

"Like me," Hiccup frowned, suddenly realizing just how alone he was.

###

Emily watched as Nickolai aided their friend through the brightly lit and distracting airport. She wondered if the smells, sights, and sounds were overstimulating for their Norseman—whose name she had learned was Hiccup—seeing his eyes round as saucers. She was thankful he hadn't had another panic episode during their flight. The damage to the jeep had been bad enough. Having that happen to a plane... not a happy visual.

"We're going to retrieve his dagger at security. We'll meet you two at the front," Nickolai said.

Emily blinked and nodded. She watched as the two wandered off, Hiccup leaning against Nickolai as his prosthetic slipped out from beneath him. She huffed out a sigh through her nose, the corner of her lips turning up into a smile. She had all but forgotten she was not alone.

"You like him, don't you?" Nikki's voice crashed her daydream of undressing Hiccup with her eyes.

"What?" Emily blurted out. She turned to look at her niece who eyed her with a wry grin.

"Oh come on! You were practically drooling just now!" Nikki groaned. "So… you like him?"

Emily glanced back where the two men had once been and bit her lower lip. "It's errrr... It's complicated."

"Why?" Nikki demanded.

"Well…"

"What's so complicated about love? I'm a teenager, not a five-year-old for God's sake!" Nikki exclaimed.

"Nikki!" Emily chastised.

Nikki quickly recoiled. "Sorry…"

"He belongs to another," Emily finally explained.

"But I thought you found him in the cave," Nikki cocked a brow at her.

"We did," Emily nodded as they walked through the extensive airport. "But he said he has a betrothed."

_Whom I'm not too sure is still alive... and, if she isn't, he'll need time to mourn. _

That seemed to placate Nikki as the two walked the length of the airport quietly.

"He would have made a cool uncle," Nikki finally said after a while of silence.

Emily felt a smile tugging at her lips once more. If only luck in love balanced out the amount of work in her field. She didn't believe in luck or any of that nonsense. But Emily often felt as though she were destined to be alone.

Both Emily and Nikki finally passed through the doors into the outside world. Even though she was in shape for her age, that was quite a trek as they caught their breath on the sidewalk waiting for Nickolai and Hiccup. She had expected them to take a while with customs, but the two emerged from the doors shortly after them and Hiccup gaped up in wonder at the outside world. She wondered just how Hiccup perceived their modern world. The levels of parking lots off to their left. The control tower in front—which she deduced must look like a medieval tower to him—and the roads that stretched for miles across the countryside.

The ride to the ship museum felt long. But as they began to leave the countryside behind and enter suburban life, Hiccup quickly became curious and asked questions about their modern homes, or items he didn't understand. His behavior reminded her of a toddler just beginning to talk and asking questions about the world around him. Emily found it entertaining how Hiccup would quickly wear on Nickolai's patience with his innocent questions. His curiosity seemed to shed the minutes.

As they entered Oslo, Emily glanced over at Hiccup. She smiled warmly to see his eyes dart this way and that at the massive buildings as they entered the old city.

Emily was sure Nickolai would have a coronary by the time they left downtown Oslo and drew closer to the Ship Museum from all of the questions Hiccup asked. His Norwegian was thick, but he was quickly picking up on it, and becoming more clear for her to understand. It was a relief to finally be able to understand him. He asked about every little detail they passed on the drive to the museum while simultaneously driving Nickolai nuts with his growing curiosity about their world.

"Oh dear…" Emily heard Nickolai from the front as he pulled up to their destination and looked out.

A picket line had been formed outside the Viking Ship museum across the street. People were shouting and chanting.

"No way," Nikki said excitedly from the front as she filmed the sight on her phone.

"I don't understand. Why are they angry?" Hiccup had asked beside her in his thick Norwegian accent.

Emily looked to Nickolai who appeared to be struggling with what to say.

"They're scared," Emily quickly recovered for Nickolai in Norwegian.

"Scared of what?"

"Of Asgardians," Nickolai explained carefully.

Hiccup scoffed, "Can't say that I blame them. I mean, well, look what happened to me," she could practically hear Hiccup's disappointment and scorn.

Nickolai sighed and said, "Fear makes people irrational."

Hiccup nodded. "Something I am all too familiar with."

Emily looked out, watching as they passed the picket line. The people were shouting and pumping their fists at them as they drove by. She looked over, watching Hiccup flinch back to see the angry faces and lay a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry you had to see that, Hiccup. These are… troubling times," Nickolai said.

* * *

AN: I want to apologize about Ch 2, I only today realized that FF McGlitched on copy n paste. I'm hoping that the situation is fixed now that I'm posting .rtf files. Thank you for your patience!


	5. Answering The Call

Nickolai glanced back toward the shouting line of picketters as they walked up to the museum's entrance. Standing by the doors, an elderly man with thinning grey hair and a mustache, dressed in a battered old black blazer was waiting for them.

"Dreadfully sorry about those _poachers_!" the old man shouted to be heard over the chanting of the picket line, only to get blasts of profanity in return.

"Only a matter of time, I suppose?" Nickolai said to his old colleague as the rest of his company fell in behind him.

Glancing over the rim of his sunglasses at Hiccup, the elder's smile widened. "Is this, is this him?" Without even waiting for an answer, he moved past Nickolai to get a closer look.

Amused, Nickolai turned and watched. "Hiccup, this is my colleague and old professor, Martin Lieber. He's now the curator of this museum, and made me and many others into the people we are today," he said as Martin circled Hiccup, eyeing the Norseman up and down. Without warning, Martin reached out to lift up Hiccup's arm to get a better look at his outfit.

"Hand stitched!" Martin exclaimed, his finger brushing along the stitching of Hiccup's armor as he admired the craftsmanship.

"What else would it be?" Nickolai pointed out.

"Animal bone or iron sewing needle?" Martin asked curiously as he rounded Hiccup.

"Uh, iron," Hiccup said then looked to Nickolai when Martin ducked just out of sight behind Hiccup.

"What is he, uh, doing?" Hiccup asked, sounding uncomfortable despite his curiosity toward Martin.

"Martin, stop poking the poor fellow. His name is Hiccup," he said, and then turned to look Hiccup in the eye. "He's being a scholar."

"This is the genuine article!" Martin said with uncontained excitement, which made Hiccup snort, seemingly more at ease. "Really glad I bet on the right pony this time."

"You act as though I've been wrong in the past," Nickolai jested as he watched Martin explore Hiccup's armor with awe.

As Martin came back around to the front of Hiccup and admire the details of his chest plate, Hiccup plucked the sunglasses right off Martin's nose and curiously held them up to his eyes.

"Hiccup!" Nickolai chided as the Norseman put the glasses on his own face and looked around.

But Martin just laughed. "I did the same! It's fine!"

"It's made of... glass?" Hiccup pulled the sunglasses off his nose before looking them over, sounding almost disappointed.

"They are," Martin said with a nod. "You're very perceptive!"

"I have… had eye-wear like this. But I made them out of, er, amber." Hiccup handed the sunglasses back over to Martin who took them and put them back on.

"He's a craftsman," Nickolai said with an excited grin.

Another shout from the picket lines and Nickolai could see it had both Martin and Hiccup anxious.

"We should take this inside. Follow me," Martin waved them to follow.

The group filed into the museum. Nickolai smiled as Hiccup looked all around him with wide eyes. Despite the picket line outside, the museum was still packed with tourists and locals alike.

"Emi, keep an eye on him. Don't want him getting lost," Nickolai said, seeing Hiccup's eyes wander around the large foyer.

"Here's the situation," Martin began as they passed by the entrance desk, Martin waving to the staff that they were with him. "I was able to get into contact with our," he glanced around, "immigrant friends."

"I think we can call them Asgardians," Nickolai said dryly. "It's not like we're out in public at the moment."

"True. Well, Thor has agreed to come... _provided_ Hiccup can be confirmed as one of them—and to do that, he is sending a 'herald' to investigate."

"Who?" Nickolai asked.

"Someone by the name of Valkyrie," Martin said. "No idea if that's actually a name or a title." He looked around. "Where did they go?"

Nickolai turned to see that Hiccup had paused as they had passed an enclosed display case. Both Emily and Nikki had stayed at Hiccup's side, keeping an eye on him as he stared deeply into the case.

"This is what you mean by," Hiccup swallowed, "'Looking into the past'?" Nickolai looked into the display case as he rejoined the ancient Viking and his partner. The glass case contained several corroded sword fragments, excavated from various burial sites; time had not been kind to the weapons, as their iron was worn down almost beyond recognition and any remnants of their hilts were likewise long gone. But there was one exception; resting snug in a velvet case on the top shelf was a sword, the blade still in good shape, with an ornate grip, guard and pommel, made of dragon heads, while runes dotted the blade itself. As Nickolai came closer, he could see that it was the dragon hilt that Hiccup was eyeing intently.

"We look into the past, so that their stories can be told," Martin explained slowly.

"Being forgotten is a terrible thing," Nickolai added.

"You skalds are basically telling ghost stories," Hiccup said morosely.

"I suppose one could look at it that way," Martin nodded.

Without warning, Hiccup reached up and snapped the lock on the front of the glass case off with a loud crunch. An alarm went off as he opened the glass door. Nickolai and a few visitors within hearing range yelped in surprise.

"What are you doing?" Nickolai demanded, shocked by his sudden and unexpected vandalism.

Hiccup appeared distracted as he grabbed the sword shaft and pulled it out of the case. He pressed a nodule, clearly expecting something to happen. He shook it once, then twice and grew frustrated when it didn't work.

"I don't understand, it should work!" Hiccup growled.

"Hiccup?" Nickolai cautiously approached the young man. Seeing Hiccup's growing anger left him uncomfortable and unsure whether the Norseman would turn his aggression on him, based on his apparent growing hostility towards scholars. He signalled for the girls to stand back. But then the way that Hiccup was handling the blade gave him pause, and a thought occurred to him. "Do you... _know _that hilt?" he asked slowly.

"Know it? I made it! But someone broke it!" Hiccup turned it this way and that as he looked into the larger mouth of the polished metal dragons. He turned it on it's side and tried to pry it open with his fingernails when another nodule failed.

"That's probably because it's a replica," Martin said cautiously. "The real one was lost to us back in World War II. When Nazis raided and took anything of value. Oh, we are still paying the insurance for having lost that," he groaned.

"Replica? Nazis?" Hiccup looked towards Martin. His obvious frustration faded, replaced by confusion, and he held the replica up to his eyes. "It's a copy?"

"I'll give you a brief history lesson later. But what you're holding is a fake. For display," Nickolai intervened.

"For... why!?" Hiccup demanded, his voice sounding thick.

"You can always make a new sword, right? You said that you made this one," Nickolai cautiously suggested... and then flinched at the sight of tears building up in Hiccup's eyes. Emotionally compromised superhuman with super strength... museum full of irreplaceable fragile artifacts... not a good combination.

"You don't understand. This sword, this is my _key_," Hiccup choked out.

"Key? Key to what?" Nickolai repeated, his curiosity growing.

Hiccup still seemed hesitant about giving a full explanation, but it was clear to Nickolai that, whatever it was he was protecting, it was of great value to him. And the possibilities were...

Nickolai looked at the sword-replica Hiccup was holding in his hand. Combining the fact that this young man had been kept on figurative ice for a thousand years with the fact that he had not broken down into mourning... it seemed too much to hope, but Nickolai asked gently, "Hiccup... is that the key to your _people?"_

Hiccup froze, but before he could say anything else, another voice intruded.

"He's hidden an entire island chain," a woman interrupted them, speaking in English. The group looked up. Crowds parted as a young woman dressed in very _tight _leather glided toward them. "At least that's what Heimdall said when he briefed me."

"Excuse me, _what?_" Nikki blurted.

Martin looked at her. "You must be Valkyrie?" he asked, his tone accented.

"I am," she said.

Meanwhile, Nickolai's mind was racing at what the Asgardian had just said. _An entire island chain. Hidden._ And if they were in the same sort of stasis that Hiccup had been in…

He turned to Hiccup, seeing a baffled and confused look at their sudden shift in language and tried to collect his focus.

Before he could translate for the young man, however, Valkyrie walked up to Hiccup. "So, you're the one claiming to be Odin's grandson?" she said in Old Norse.

"Yes! Where's Heimdall? I have to speak with him!" Hiccup replied, his voice filled with pain.

Valkyrie stepped back to look him over. "When I heard that the hag had spawned, I expected a serpent, or maybe a draugr. Not a fishbone."

Hiccup scowled at her. "I'm not my mother."

"I can tell. The people around you are still alive," Valkyrie shot back acidly.

"What did Heimdall tell you?" Hiccup asked, his words coming in an odd mix of Old Norse and modern Norwegian. "That I knew her all of, what, two days before Odin's mask failed after my father died? That she threatened to kill everyone I loved? That she tortured me and left me to die? What do I have to tell you to convince you that I'm not _her?"_

Valkyrie blinked, but her face set even tighter as Nickolai and Martin both reeled at what Hiccup had just said. Before they could ask any of their burning questions, she said, "The fact that you're holding a blade that _looks like one of hers_ doesn't help!"

Hiccup scowled and held up the sword. "This," he pointed to the hilt, "is a copy of what _I_ made. I have no idea where the blade came from! But this is a fake! A copy! For all I know, some blacksmith in the last thousand years took what I made and added this, and then it was copied! I just want to find _my_ sword!"

"Why, so you can go around and butcher people like mommy dearest!?" Valkyrie shot back. "If you have the _slightest_ dribble of her power in your blood, I'll spill it now and save us all a lot of grief!"

Hiccup, with a cry of obvious frustration, opened and closed his hands in a spasm, snapped off the blade—making Martin cry out in surprised objection—and shoved the bare hilt onto the thigh holster that he'd reached for previously, where it fit snugly. "There, happy?"

"Not in the slightest. Your mother slaughtered nearly every Asgardian, and the tattered remnants are huddled on a cold rock in the middle of a colder sea, and I'm supposed to _bring you to them!?"_

Nickolai felt himself choking. Ever since their arrival, the Asgardians had been closed-lipped over what had driven them into exile.

"I'm _not_ Hela!" Hiccup insisted. "My _mother_ was Valka! As far as I knew, she was a woman of Midgard! And I knew her for all of two days before Odin's spell failed after Da... after my father died!"

Valkyrie looked at him impassively, but her eyes were still filled with venom. "You're not helping your case by simply repeating the same words over and over. She's not your mother, but she was, under the spell, and you barely knew her?"

"Hela tried to kill me! She left me to die! Look!" Hiccup wrenched up the cuff of his sleeve. "I hung on a tree for eight days, her swords through my body, waiting to _die!_"

Nickolai glanced a look at Hiccup's wrist, and saw the wounds that Emily had reported to him, back when they'd thought that Hiccup was just a well-preserved corpse.

###

Nikki grew bored as she listened to the altercation between the Asgardian and Hiccup in Norwegian. She may not have understood the specific words, but the body language and the tones coming off the Asgardian were definitely hostile.

Then she froze as those were suddenly aimed in her direction. "Is this being filmed?" the Asgardian asked.

"I... no!" Nikki blurted and turned quickly, pointing her phone out onto the museum floor, towards the wandering crowds. She would have to edit that out at some point.

That was apparently enough, as they went back to arguing in Norwegian. Nikki rolled her eyes. Her aunt had tried teaching her, but it was difficult to wrap her tongue around the words to form the syllables and consonants, and she secretly envied her aunt for being able to speak it. She had a lot of questions for Hiccup, but they didn't look like they were going to get answered anytime soon.

She decided she'd wander off, grab some ambient footage for her documentary while they argued—and it didn't look like the Asgardian wanted her there. Not that drama wasn't exciting for the documentary in the making, but Nikki wasn't going to risk getting her phone snatched and crushed—she did, after all, have hours of footage on her memory chip that she didn't want to lose.

And her teacher almost certainly wouldn't buy the excuse that an Asgardian had destroyed her homework.

So, background shots it was!

Nikki started to explore the halls of the museum, sweeping her phone camera around to get good shots of the Viking-era artifacts on display. The place was peaceful save for the bustling din from the visitors, and Nikki had come to the conclusion that _all_ museums were equally boring.

Ambling around, being careful not to make sudden movements that would make the footage unusable, she entered a small alcove which had more artifacts behind glass. She let the camera linger over each of them in turn, figuring that they'd make good filler footage, when a pendant depicting three ravens in the form of Odin's triangle caught her eye.

She took a closer look, Nickolai's _endless_ lectures on Norse mythology echoing through her head. He'd been very specific: Odin only ever had _two _ravens in the stories.

Quirking her eyebrows, she looked at the info panel and sagged in slight relief. Thank god, it had an English translation!

_Hulgr, Odin's lesser known third raven. While Huginn and Muninn represent Thought and Memory, respectively. Hulgr represented Mind. It is said that Hulgr was cursed by Hela for refusing to bow down before her and was transformed into the serpent Hrafnir, the World-Devourer, as punishment. Hrafnir began devouring Svalbard, and had already swallowed a portion of the archipelago before Odin stepped in and slew the cursed serpent. _

Nikki rolled her eyes. Norse mythology was _crazy!_

But then a random comment from a few minutes before whacked into her head as she looked at the words. _Already swallowed a portion of the archipelago..._

_He hid an entire island chain..._

Nikki cocked her head in thought as an idea was slowly forming in her mind. _Serpent_ was practically another word for dragon. And Hiccup had _many _dragon images on his clothes, so many that part of her wondered if he had dragon tattoos—or if her aunt would find out personally.

But... hmm...

Well, if he _had_ done all that, someone would have noticed. North mythology was indeed crazy, an obscure chaos of legends. Would it really be surprising if Hiccup's deeds had been recorded as either or both Hulgr and Hrafnir instead of simply, boringly, saying what happened?

She was about to step out of the alcove to go find Nickolai and tell him her theory, when she heard the noises.

Shouts and the sounds of something heavy falling to the ground.

She peered around the corner to the entrance, and sucked in a breath when she saw men with guns and bodies on the floor before her sightline was obscured by terrified visitors. Immediately she threw herself underneath the display cases, and pressed herself as far back into the space as she possibly could as people began to stampede past her, deeper into the museum to get away from the threat at the doors.

Her hands trembled as she tried to pull up her contacts list on her phone, her tone shaking as much as her hands, "Idiot! I should have known trouble would follow Fuzzball!" She found the number—which she had been admonished _repeatedly_ was for "emergencies only"—and dialed. As it rang, she scolded herself. "This is what you get being around an Asgardian. Come on, come on, pick up!"

As the phone rang, Nikki's chest tightened in fear, and she forced herself to breathe in and out through her mouth like how her aunt had taught her, in order to keep from panicking.

_Finally_ the screen flickered to life.

"Nikki?" a familiar face greeted her on the screen.

Nikki found it difficult to communicate, her fear lodged her words in her throat and tears blurred her vision. "Mom," Nikki finally forced out.

"Nikki, what is it? I'm at work," her mother said. "No, sir, it's just my daughter. She—"

A shout came from nearby, and in the next moment Nikki was hauled out of her hiding space. She gave a squeal of pain as her arm was twisted behind her back and the phone was plucked from her hands. "What's this here?" an angry and distinctly female voice inquired. "I thought we had jammed—oh shit."

"Nikki!" came her mother's faint call of alarm from the phone, then a different voice came through the phone, male and confident and _famous_.

"Congratulations. _'Oh shit'_ was the right reaction. Why are you holding the..."

"Daughter. Her name is Nikki," her mother's voice, terrified, supplied.

"Daughter of one of my employees like that?"

The woman holding the phone, whose face was was halfway covered by a mask, gave Nikki a calculating glance, looked up at the phone, and then down at her again. And the face under the mask hardened. "We have no quarrel with you, Stark," she said in accented English. "We're here for the Asgardians' artifact." She looked up at the man holding Nikki. "We'll be in and out before you can get your armor on, much less leave the US. And assuming she doesn't do anything stupid, the girl will stay unharmed. But you might want to talk to your alien friend _Thor_ about staying out of our way."

"Right, so, now, here's how it's going to _actually_ go," came the voice from the phone. "You hurt that little girl and—"

"Stark, if I get a whiff of Iron Man around this museum, I'll reduce it—and all of the lies and _lives_ inside it—to a smoking crater," the woman said curtly. "Back off and save your heroics for when there _isn't_ an ocean in the way."

She thumbed the phone off and tossed it back to Nikki. "You're our prime hostage now. I tell you to call him, you call, got it?"

Nikki swallowed and nodded.

"Say it."

"I... I got it."

"Good. Tord, carry her. Leave her hands free for the phone, but make sure she can't run."

As her feet were zipcuffed together and she was slung over Tord's shoulder, she clutched at the phone like a lifeline, the screen only an inch from her eye.

Which is why she saw the screen light up slightly and plain text scroll across it.

NIKKI. TURN PHONE SLIGHTLY. NEED TO SEE WHAT THEY'RE CARRYING.

Her eyes went wide, but she did as instructed as they moved along.

A few moments later, they were in one of the large exhibit rooms at the back of the building, where a reconstructed Viking longship took up most of the room. More men in masks and carrying guns were already patrolling the room, and a dozen or so hostages were already zipcuffed together at the base—next to a trio of plain black backpacks. And the way those bulged made Nikki's guts want to melt in terror.

"What's this?" one of the masked men asked.

"American. She's apparently one of _Stark's_ people's kids. I threatened him, but we have to assume that the Avengers might show up."

The masked man swore in Norwegian.

Nikki, feeling slightly hysterical, commented, "Don't you know you shouldn't swear in front of impressionable youth?"

Tord threw her to the floor and she cried out in pain. He was about to kick her when the woman interrupted. "Don't bother with her!"

"Fine." Tord put her with the others, and the terrorists came together in the middle of the room. Nikki did her best to hold up the phone to give it a look around the room without being obvious about it. More of the terrorists came in, carrying hostages, and the leader asked, "Have we found the artifact yet?"

"No. Apparently some old German and an... American... woman... brought..." the man said in a voice of dawning understanding. He turned to Nikki, pointed his gun at her, and shouted, "What did you find!? Where is it!?"

Nikki stared at the barrel, the opening seeming as wide as a manhole cover. She'd been stupid before. She'd stolen a car to prove that she wasn't just some stupid AV-club kid. And now she—

A heavily accented voice called out in thick English, "STOP!"

She looked up to see Hiccup standing there, a sword and shield in hand.

###

"I wouldn't feel safe with him on New Asgard," Valkyrie shot at Nickolai, crossing her arms over her chest.

Hiccup scowled; she wasn't even _speaking_ to him any longer. And while he understood Valkyrie's urge to protect her people, to say that she was being belligerent towards him was an understatement.

"But if he's half Asgardian, shouldn't he be with his people?" Nickolai asked cautiously.

"So he can finish off what mommy dearest started? Over my dead body," Varlkyrie growled.

Nickolai flinched.

Hiccup gritted his teeth, and he spoke up to draw her attention back to him. "The skald is right." She looked at him, her gaze dripping with disdain. "I should be with _my_ people. But my place is not with _you_."

"Hiccup…" Nickolai spoke up softly. "We don't know if your tribe is… well," he faltered as though struggling to find the right words. "It's been a very long time."

"And whether or not they'd want you back," Valkyrie spitefully added. "I'm surprised you managed to live so long among them. Your father must have been blind to your mother's trickery or a fool to want to keep a bastard like you—"

Before Hiccup realized it, he was right up in her space, staring her in the eyes. "Insult me all you want, but if you think you can get away with insulting my father, you—"

There were sudden shouts of panic and the sounds of a stampeding crowd, which cut him off. Valkyrie pulled her weapon and jumped back from him. "What have you done!?" she demanded, pointing the blade at Hiccup.

"It's not me!" he protested.

Emily— who had focussed on the argument— looked around in panic. "Where's Nikki?!"

A farspeaker at Martin's belt suddenly gave an odd, grating squawk, and he plucked it up to hold it to his ear. His face went ashen in a matter of moments.

"What is it?" Valkyrie asked.

"Terrorists. They're taking hostages. I need to get you all to safety!" He motioned them to a nearby door, marked with Latin lettering.

Hiccup scanned it. "'Staff only'?" he muttered. What did it... oh. Of course. Staff of office. That must be the connection.

Shaking his head to get out the random thought, he followed Martin and Nickolai through the door — and helped Valkyrie pull a protesting Emily through as she tried to go after Nikki.

He looked around the corridor behind the door as Martin took out a fine brass key and locked it after them. It was not as nicely appointed as the main areas of this _museum,_ featuring plain white paint over some bricks and an odd and worn tile floor; the parallel that came to mind was the back-chambers of the mead hall or the smithy, as compared to the more formal areas.

Valkyrie immediately turned to Martin. "What is going on?"

"I don't know!"

She turned and looked at Hiccup. "This is almost certainly your fault!"

Hiccup blinked. "How!? As far as they knew, I didn't _exist_ until yesterday!"

"And this place wasn't under siege until this morning!" she rebutted.

Hiccup scowled. "Fine. Then—"

Emily's farspeaker began to play music, as it had done a few times before. She blinked and convulsively grabbed at it. "That's my _sister._ Oh god." She held it up to her ear, her expression terrified... "Eve, I'm—" she started to say, but then her expression became baffled. "Uh, yes..."

Then awed.

"It's... for you," she said quietly, and handed it over to Valkyrie.

"What?" Valkyrie took the device and held it up to her own ear. "Who is—_Stark!?_" She took the farspeaker away from her ear, fumbled with it, and then another man's voice, speaking clipped English, came from it.

"Listen. I'm on my way, as is Thor. It's a Humans First! operation. From what we've been able to tell, they've got fifteen hostages in a room with a longboat, along with three backpacks full of explosives."

Valkyrie nodded as if this all made sense. "But how are you getting here in time? You're on the other side of the ocean."

"I know a guy. In fact, Friday, brief them. I've got to take this call." The strong voice cut out and another woman's voice came on.

"I'm going over the footage from Nicole Peterson's phone. There are six terrorists, armed with pistols; they have backpacks filled with explosives, which they are in the process of arming. Their objective is an 'Asgardian artifact'..."

That was as far as she got before Hiccup looked up, to see Valkyrie looking at him with anger and condemnation.

It _was _his fault.

Without another word, Hiccup turned and kicked open the door. It tore free of its hinges as if they were made of parchment, and he bolted out before anyone got the chance to stop him.

This was his fault, and he was going to fix it.

Reflexively, he reached for his sword in its holster, but then remembered that it was nothing but a useless copy. Cursing inwardly, he looked around for something, _anything_, he could use as a weapon—and almost laughed. The walls around him were _filled_ with all kinds of weapons. He only had to choose.

Hiccup grabbed a double-handed sword, crafted in the mainlanders' style, from a display case, followed by a shield from a wall display. It was thick steel, but to his enhanced strength, both weapon and shield felt like they were carved from light pine. He vaguely recalled having seen a longboat on the way in and—

He heard footsteps from behind him, but he was running too fast for them to catch up, the spike of his prosthetic digging into the floor as he ran—and he was there.

He stood in an intersecting hallway and saw the longboat, and the prisoners beneath it—and one of the masked men was pointing what could only be a weapon at Nikki's face as tears streamed from her eyes. Her feet were bound, and she was staring up at the man who would be her killer in frozen terror.

"STOP!" he bellowed—and they all turned.

In Norwegian—he hoped—he said, "Nobody needs to die! You're here for an artifact of Asgard?" He held the shield up in front of him. "Well here I am."

* * *

AN: Has anyone guessed who Martin Lieber is by the end of the chapter?

I felt it was an honorable tribute to include Stan Lee in Resurrection as a cameo. May his memory be a blessing.


	6. Heroes Step Forward

New York state flew by underneath—Friday had already filed apologies and a flight path for the supersonic trip to New York City—as Tony frantically made calls.

The staff at the UN had—reluctantly—approved of his request to intervene in a growing terrorist incident in Norway, mostly due to it being Asgardian-related. So that was good.

Thor wasn't answering his phone—and Valkyrie had turned down hers. Repeatedly.

One ear and display was giving him the feed from Nikki Peterson's phone, while Friday was analyzing the data dump from the girl's phone as it uploaded. Thank goodness Pepper had given all of the corporate staff and family a Stark-Phone plan; the jamming the terrorists were using was only cutting into the phone's bandwidth, not blocking it completely.

"Sir," Evelyn Peterson's voice came in. "Nikki is supposed to be with my sister, Emily. She has one of the Stark phones..."

"Call it. And transfer to here. We're getting your kid out of there, promise."

The phone rang three times.

A distraught voice answered. "Eve, I'm—"

"Ms. Porter, this is Tony Stark. I'm inbound. Is Valkyrie there?"

"Uh... yes..."

"Give the phone to Valkyrie," he said.

There was a brief pause, and then the Asgardian woman's voice came on.

"You need a phone," he said as she started to speak.

"Who is—_Stark?"_

"Put me on speakerphone," he said, and waited until he heard the beep. "Listen. I'm on my way, as is Thor. It's a Humans First! operation. From what we've been able to tell, they've got fifteen hostages in a room with a longboat, along with three backpacks full of explosives."

"But how are you getting here in time?" Valkyrie asked. "You're on the other side of the ocean."

"I know a guy." And speak of the devil... "In fact, Friday, brief them. I've got to take this call." One icon shifted to another, even as he kept watch on the feed from the girl's phone.

"Stark," the wizard's cultured voice came through. "What is it?"

"I need a gate from your New York address to Oslo, Norway in," he looked up at the GPS, "one minute and thirty seconds. You can handle a Mach two sonic boom, right?"

"Stark..." Strange said warningly. "What's going on?"

"Asgardians versus homegrown bigots. One minute fifteen. They've got kids as hostages. You helping or not?"

There was a brief pause. "I'm helping. Oslo?"

"Yep. Near the Ship Museum."

"Got it." There was a pause. "...There's a strong energy source there."

"Valkyrie's on site. Probably her."

There was sudden motion in the feed from the girl's camera, and a man's voice bellowing, "STOP!"

"Uh oh."

A gunshot rang out and a body hit the floor.

###

Hiccup, holding the sword and shield up in front of him, looked around the room; he saw at least eight of the men and women wearing masks and carrying those odd weapons in their hands.

The masked woman scoffed. "You?" She pointed her weapon at him and—

A loud _BANG_ echoed, and _something_ hit Hiccup in the shoulder with a great deal of force. The shock of it knocked him to the floor, and the sword and shield clattered to the ground with him.

"Anyone else want to be a hero today?" the woman asked in Norwegian. "Now, where's the artifact?"

Hiccup blinked and hauled himself to his feet—making at least one of the attackers squeak in surprise. "I told... huh... you... it's... me," he panted out, feeling a bit out of breath, but otherwise all right. He could feel the energy from the belt flowing into him and helping him heal and be ready.

The masked woman turned and looked at him, and her eyes widened in surprise as she pointed her weapon at him again, and then narrowed. "All right then."

She fired three more times, and Hiccup grunted in pain as three red hot spikes seemed to drill their way through his gut and out his back, but he remained standing.

Then the woman's eyes widened in surprise as she stared at his gut, and Hiccup looked down. There were three small holes in his armor over his gut... pale skin flecked with freckles were visible underneath.

"SHIT! Get him!" the masked woman screamed, and one of the other attackers tried to fire at him as well.

Hiccup dropped into a roll and snatched up the shield, flinging it into the man. He dropped, and the shield chimed like a bell as it clattered to the floor. Still in a roll, Hiccup plucked up the dropped sword and swung it through the hand of the man that had been threatening Nikki; he screamed as his weapon—still held in his hand—hit the floor and fired.

Chips of stone burst through the air as another attacker tried to fire at him, and Hiccup continued to roll behind another display, this one tall and narrow. Pulling his feet up into his chest, he kicked, and the whole display tore loose from the floor and flew at the man; there was a horrible _squelch_ of impact, but Hiccup didn't turn to look. He was already in motion again, and grabbed the shield from the ground where it had fallen.

Coming out of his roll, he saw that the remaining attackers weren't pointing their weapons at him—but at the hostages.

"Give us the artifact," the woman said, holding her weapon to Nikki's head, "or I blow the girl's brains out."

Hiccup didn't hesitate and bellowed, "DROP IT."

A sudden clatter of metal on stone issued as suddenly everyone in the room dropped what they were holding in hand—the attackers dropping their weapons, and Nikki dropping her farspeaker.

"What the—" was all the woman had to say before Hiccup was among them; a bash with his shield sent the largest remaining one of the attackers flying into the wall, and then a backswing sent the masked woman flying into the longship, where she hit with a resounding _THUD._

Suddenly, Nikki's farspeaker shouted, "Throw the rucksacks up and away!"

Hiccup didn't hesitate, and, still moving, spun into a crouch, plucked up the three rucksacks, black but apparently made with the same material as Nikki's, and flung them by their straps up through the glass skylight. There was a blast of light and a concussion that knocked them all down, and sent more glass from above down in a rain.

And then there was an alarming _creak,_ as the longship started to tilt—towards the bound hostages.

Hiccup bolted to his feet and ran to it. He might not be his father, but his new strength was enough to bend metal...

Just as the ship started to roll, he caught it; it was _heavy,_ even to his new strength, and he felt his prosthetic, made from ordinary metal, start to bend and crumple under the stress. Another shout—it sounded like Valkyrie—came from behind him, and there was another BANG from the modern weapons, followed by another shock of pain through him, and a spray of blood issued from his chest.

But the wound almost instantly healed, and he focused on keeping the longship from crushing anyone using two hands and one foot. This was his fault. He could endure it—

There was a sudden and incredible _CLANG_ of metal on stone behind him, and he turned to look.

An armored man, his eyes and chest glowing, painted in blood-red and gold, had just landed behind him. For a brief second, Hiccup cursed his luck. He wasn't entirely sure for how much longer he could hold the ship up; another enemy was just what he needed right now. But to his surprise—and immense relief—the metal man apparently _wasn't_ here to fight him. On the contrary, without so much as a second of hesitation, the newcomer came up next to him, and together, they pushed the ship back to where it belonged.

Once the ship fit into place on its display, Hiccup turned to the strange armored man. "Thank you—"

Before he could finish, the man turned to him and barked in oddly clipped Norwegian, "I don't know what stunt you were trying to pull back there, Obi Wan, but your heroics almost got people killed. You're lucky you're Asgardian or else you would have been in Valhalla right about now." With an angry gesture, the man jabbed his finger at him, poking him in one of the holes of his armor.

Hiccup pulled his lips back in a scowl and whacked the hand away from his shoulder. "What was I supposed to do? Pretend nothing was going on while innocent people got hurt!?" he rebutted in Norwegian, tone rising.

"That's _exactly_ what you should have done," the armored man stepped closer to him. "I said I was coming! But,_ no,_ you had to be a _hero_ and endanger over a dozen people, including yourself! That bomb would have made you into a smear on the walls, Asgardian or not!"

Hiccup blinked hearing familiar words from his past come from a stranger. He gave a frustrated cry. "This was _my_ fault, I was trying to fix things!"

The armored man turned. "Rookie mistake. You should have let professionals handle it." He turned away from Hiccup and began walking towards the hostages before pausing and turned towards Valkyrie. "And why _are_ you here anyway? Are you _trying_ to catch a bullet?" he asked in English, his tones much less clipped, and the change in language let Hiccup recognize the voice—the man who had spoken through Emily's farspeaker, Stark. Well, he _had_ said he was coming...

Before he could say anything else, though, to Hiccup's startlement, the armored figure's mask began to _melt away_ and pull back, revealing the man behind the mask, a tired-looking but _normal_ man with a neatly groomed beard and graying hair. The mask was obviously enchanted somehow with Asgardian crafts, which explained why he had come to the rescue.

"I had vacation days piling up, and they were non-negotiable," Valkyrie deadpanned in the same tongue. "And I heard there's an excellent brewery around here, but I took a wrong turn."

Hiccup swallowed a bark of laughter at the look on Stark's face. It was nice to know that sarcasm was a universal coping mechanism, regardless of time or language.

"You Asgardians aren't exactly straightforward, are you?" Stark asked rhetorically before he gave an exasperated sigh and said, "Paramedics are on their way in, along with the local cops. They'll be taking these guys in for questioning."

Valkyrie nodded. "That's good. So I'll get going with the _hero_ here, and get out of your hair—"

Stark held up a hand. "Before you go..."

Valkyrie paused, and Hiccup kept his mouth shut, not wanting to make things worse. For once. "Yes?" she asked.

Stark snorted. "On the off chance that I might actually get a straight answer out of you, I heard what Junior here said."

Valkyrie gave him a look of suspicion. "Oh?"

"Yeah. They were here for the 'ancient Asgardian artifact' that blew up the Internet and attracted the protestors out front. And then Wonder Boy here said that _he_ was the artifact... and..." He paused. "Did you guys pick up a stray somewhere? Friday says he's not listed in your census."

Hiccup could follow some of that, although he was moderately worried about whatever it was that he'd 'blown up' this time.

Valkyrie, on the other hand, scoffed. "In a manner of speaking, yes. Another one of Odin's many, _many_ secrets that he swept under the rug."

"_Great,_" Stark said, and ostentatiously looked around the room at the destruction. Hiccup felt a moment of embarrassment as he did the same. The tall display case he'd knocked over was lying atop a body—alive or dead, he had no idea—and old Viking coins littered the floor. The floor was chipped, pitted and covered in small pools of blood, and the bodies of the attackers were scattered about like rag dolls that had been played with by an angry child. The one man whose hand he'd... removed was sitting weeping on the floor, having improvised a tourniquet out of his sleeve; the revealed arm showed a tattoo on his bicep; a circle with two oblong blobs inside it at the top and bottom and letters around the circle reading 'Earth For All _Only _Mankind'. Just as Hiccup felt like he couldn't feel any more sheepish, Stark's gaze fell back on him, and Hiccup squirmed for a moment, having a few memories—all right, a _lot_ of memories—of his dad dressing him down for another destructive mess-up.

"Okay, but nobody's hurt except for the raiders, right?" Hiccup said as charmingly as he could in Norwegian.

Stark scoffed and turned to Valkyrie. "Given the damage and lack of green skin, I think it's safe to say he's one of yours." He then glanced up and said dryly, "And I wouldn't be too sure on that, Wonder Boy." He gestured with his chin, and Hiccup turned to see Nikki, covered in blood, curled up on the floor, whimpering and holding her arm, huddled under a display case.

Fear for her spiked through him and he went to take a step. But the floor wasn't his friend, as his bent prosthetic hit a patch of blood and he went down sprawling in a heap of limbs.

Stark chuckled and Valkyrie snorted at the sight.

At that moment, a number of people—some wearing black jackets with runes reading _POLITI_, others in bright red-and-yellow uniforms—came rushing into the room; Emily, Nickolai and Martin being off-color figures in the crowd.

Nickolai helped haul him upright, and Hiccup didn't miss that the uniformed people were giving a wide berth around him, Stark and Valkyrie. The black-jacketed people quickly put manacles and other restraints onto the raiders, shocking Hiccup, but a muttered comment from Nickolai on how they weren't being enthralled mollified him. It wasn't as if such measures weren't unheard of for criminals back on... Berk. Yeah.

The red-and-yellow-clad people, though, turned out to be healers, with their carry-cases being filled with bandages and other more arcane equipment. They went around to the various injured in the room, raider and bystander alike, and started to treat them. One of them was kneeling by Nikki's hiding spot and trying to coax her out.

Hiccup gave a sheepish and awkward forced grin when one of them cautiously picked up that one raider's severed hand and packed it in what looked like a case of ice.

"Think they'll be able to reattach it?" Emily asked.

Hiccup turned and stared at her. "They can _do_ that?" he asked in shocked broken English.

Stark scoffed. "Wonder Boy, you really _aren't_ from around here, are you?"

Hiccup turned and looked at him. "No. And I'm trying to get back to _when_ I came from."

Stark muttered something that sounded like, _Oh, no, not more time travel bullshit,_ but Hiccup ignored him. The healer trying to coax Nikki out had failed, and was trying to bodily haul her out from her hiding spot, without much success. Moving carefully, he looked around, and spotted Nikki's far-speaker and picked it up off the floor before it was stepped on in the sudden burst of activity. Noticing a few droplets of blood on the glass screen, he borrowed a scrap of bandage from one of the healers and carefully wiped it clean.

By this point, Nikki had wrapped her legs around something under the display case. "I want to go home! Nobody said I'd be getting shot at!"

Hiccup walked over and carefully knelt, touching the healer on the shoulder, and said in rough Norwegian, "Can I try?"

"No. You hurt her, and I'll see you get put up on charges," the healer said gruffly.

Hiccup scowled. He was _trying_ to protect Nikki... but he paused and tried to see it from the healer's perspective, where a super-strong man could easily hurt the girl. With a heavy sigh he said, "You're right. But please... let me try?"

The healer scowled at him, but before he could say anything else, Hiccup called quietly under the display case in the best English he could manage. "Nikki? I've got your far-speaker here. Didn't you say that you needed it for your schooling?"

She shakily nodded.

He held it up and put it down on the floor next to the healer... a little out past the end of the case.

"Here. Just let the nice healer help you, all right?"

She looked at the far-speaker, looked at him, looked at the healer, and then back to the far-speaker.

Hiccup backed off and she cautiously emerged, and took up the small slate before letting the healer start treating her — thankfully light — wounds.

Satisfied that she was being taken care of, Hiccup stood and turned back to Stark and Valkyrie, who were bantering back and forth.

"So now what?" he asked as he hobbled back into speaking range.

Stark looked him up and down. "Well, I've let Nikki's mother know that she's safe. So I imagine that Valkyrie here packs you up and takes you back to New Asgard after she settles the damage bill."

Valkyrie sagged, while Stark looked oddly gleeful at that last bit.

"I don't understand..." Hiccup said cautiously.

Stark grinned. "It's not me this time that has to pay for all of this!"

Hiccup looked around at the damage and felt his heart sink as memories of him trying to help out only to make a mess of things—and his father having to clean up after him—came flooding back. He winced. "Oh." Then the rest of Stark's comment filtered in. "Wait — what? No! I don't _want_ to go to New Asgard. I want to go _home._"

"Wonder Boy, from what Valkyrie told me, your _home_ was left a thousand years in the past." Stark seemed oddly sympathetic and then reached out and patted him on the shoulder with one metal-gauntleted-hand.

Hiccup scowled and went to bat the hand away but reconsidered after a moment. "Let me talk to Heimdall first before I say that they're all dust and bones, all right? And I need to find my sword; I remember Odin telling me that it was a key."

Stark shared a look with Valkyrie before saying, "And then what?"

"Depends on what Heimdall has to say," Hiccup said—and then looked up as there was the sound of thunder through the shattered roof window.

Stark looked up as well. "Fashionably late, I see," he snarked.

People cleared back below the open hole as a tall blond man with a red cape, lightning cascading over his body, descended through the window. And Hiccup immediately recognized him from depictions of the famed god he'd grown up with, although his hair was the wrong color. Landing lightly, Thor's gaze fell on them. His breath hitched. For a brief moment Hiccup thought the _god_ was looking directly at him. "Ah, Stark! Fancy meeting you here!"

"I had a Strange time getting here," Stark replied with an odd emphasis — or maybe that was just how the word was pronounced? Hiccup was still getting the hang of English.

Thor nodded solemnly. "I see. Going back the regular way, though?"

Stark sighed. "I guess I'll have to. But first, dealing with Wonder Boy here."

Thor turned to Hiccup and looked him over. "So! You're my nephew! Well met!"

Hiccup looked at the god in front of him and felt faint as what he'd said sank in. Nephew. He was the god's _nephew_! He could barely get his words out past the growing lump in his throat. "Uh, yeah. So, um, you're Thor."

"And a pain in the ass," Stark snarked, making Valkyrie snort. Hiccup shot Stark a confused look. Thor being unphased by his remark, even smirking at it told him the two must have history together. He then looked back up at Thor, and his eyes grew round. He prayed that he was about to give no offense for what he was about to ask.

Then paused. Who was he praying _to?_

"I... uh... th-thought that you'd have two eyes. And where's your hammer?"

Thor's face shadowed for a moment. "Your mother took both."

Hiccup swallowed. "Uh..."

Thor reached out and clasped him on the shoulder. "But you aren't her! And I'm not going to punish you for her actions, have no worry!" He then looked around and grew a pained expression. "_Please,_ please tell me that you and Valkyrie didn't fight."

Valkyrie snorted. "He's still standing, so, _no._"

"You and Stark? I remember how we first met."

Stark snorted. "I hear the forest there is finally starting to come back." He scoffed. "No, it was a Humans First! group that figured that they don't like Asgardians, but will happily take Asgardian artifacts. They just didn't figure that this one would be walking around on a leg and a half. Your nephew here charged in, got himself shot a few times, and played hero. He's lucky that nobody else got severely injured or killed."

Thor nodded. "How many?"

"Six."

Thor beamed at Hiccup and he could feel his cheeks heat from awkward shyness that was not helped by what he said next. "And you took them all on by yourself! Very good!"

Stark made a slight strangled noise, but didn't say anything else.

At that moment, Hiccup felt a hand on his shoulder and whirled, his own hand reaching for the hilt on his hip reflexively.

Emily was standing there, with Nickolai and one of the healers; his two friends looking concerned. He relaxed, but then cocked a brow.

"What's wrong?" Hiccup asked.

"Uh... a little hard to explain," Nickolai said as Emily looked him over carefully, silently counting, and then her eyes widened.

"Hiccup, turn around."

Obediently, he did so. "What's going on?"

Behind him, she swore and said to Nickolai, "I count five bullet holes on his front... and only four on his back."

"Uh oh," Stark commented.

Hiccup paused. "What, 'bullet'? Like you use in a sling?"

Nickolai shrugged. "With a thousand years of refinement, yes; now they're almost like arrowheads. It looks like you've got the one in your shoulder—that first one—still in there. The paramedic noticed and asked us to check."

Hiccup blinked. "Uh... so you're saying that there's an arrowhead stuck inside my shoulder? _Under_ the healed skin?"

"That's more or less the size of it, yes. And worse, it's made of lead."

Hiccup grimaced. "Uh... lead. As in, heavy metal that breathing the fumes when you melt it drives men mad? Soft, kind of silvery, _poisonous?_"

Nickolai grimaced and gave a pained nod. "That's the one..."

"So much for hoping for a mistranslation..." Hiccup muttered and looked to Emily. "So... please tell me your next question was 'Can we take it out before you turn into a deranged lunatic?'" _One Dagur is enough, thank you very much,_ he thought. Yes, it took extended exposure to lead to have that effect... but with his speed of healing, who was to say it wasn't also going to be accelerated?

Emily nodded, and Nickolai stepped forward with the healer.

"Alright, let's take a look," the healer said, and reached up with a pair of gloved hands. "Can you sit down somewhere? You're too tall to make this easy."

Hiccup shrugged—which set off a _wave_ of pain through the shoulder. "_Ack,"_ he grunted.

"Hiccup, you okay?"

With a slightly strangled moan, he said, "It's definitely still in there... and my body isn't happy about it." Without another word, he ambled over to a nearby bench and carefully sat.

The healer came over to him and, after Hiccup took off the tattered remains of that section of armor, started to probe his shoulder with firm touches of his fingertips. "The entire area is swelling," he observed. "I'm worried that it might be internal bleeding from the bullet lying against an artery... wait, no, it's in the wrong spot. But what would cause that much swelling that fast?"

"Foreign body reaction, magnified by his healing rate," Emily suggested. "I mean, the skin's already healed; his system is probably on overdrive, trying to isolate the toxin."

As they spoke, Hiccup glanced back and forth between his two shoulders; he could see the swelling that the healer had mentioned—a shiny and reddish area of skin perhaps two or three inches across, visibly standing up from the surrounding flesh.

He swallowed.

"Well, then it has to come out before the swelling starts to impact his brachial artery," the healer said. "I don't care how fast he heals, if he loses oxygen flow to the extremities, he'll start getting necrosis."

Hiccup didn't recognize half of those words, but judging by Emily's expression, it wasn't good. "So, it has to come out," he said.

"Yes," the healer said. "And the sooner the better."

Hiccup considered for a moment, and knew that he wasn't in a position to blindly trust anyone. Not after the lessons he'd learned so painfully.

"Emily, can you take it out?" he asked.

"Me!?" Emily blurted. "I—but I only ever worked with the dead!"

"Shouldn't be too different."

"But there's a very large difference! I — what if I slip up and make things worse?" Emily argued, tone rising.

"I heal, remember? That seems to even be the problem," he said cheerfully.

"Hiccup!" she protested. "I—"

Stark interjected, "I can see where this is going so how about this—You, medic. You'll guide Ms. Porter while she operates on Wonder Boy." Stark then turned and looked at Hiccup. "Will that work?"

Hiccup opened his mouth to object, but closed it when no words formed. In the back of his mind, there was still the off chance that the healer could tell Emily what to do as she blindly trusted his guidance that would result in injuring him. But it looked like he really didn't have a choice in the matter now judging by the impatient and tired look he was receiving from Stark. He nodded reluctantly.

"Alright then. Let's do this."

Hiccup laid back on the bench as the healer handed implements to Emily one bit at a time. What happened next was... revolting.

An injection to numb the pain did little, and a small incision to open his skin and remove the bullet erupted in blood and pus, but closed again almost instantly—although the relief in pressure helped significantly with the mounting pain.

Twice more they tried to open the skin to remove the bullet, but by the time Emily had set the knife down and picked up the tweezers to probe for the bullet, the incision had healed, after releasing copious amounts of blood-tainted pus.

"It's like the worst pimple ever," Emily commented, as Nikki retched in the background. After the fourth time, she asked, exasperated, "Hiccup, is there any way to turn that off?"

"I... I think so," he said, and retreated inside himself, seeking the flow of energy that he'd become so familiar with when hanging on the tree.

He found it... and, unlike how he'd been encouraging it back then, he throttled it back with an effort of will.

"Try it now," he croaked.

Another quick slice and a relief of pressure, and he felt the tweezers probing around in his shoulder as the sensation of fullness in the wound lessened. Sweat beaded in his hair from the effort of holding back the healing. He was sure that he could remove the belt and possibly end it entirely, but he didn't know if he'd continue to heal afterwards.

Something to ask Thor and Valkyrie when he had the chance.

Speaking of them, they were watching, apparently fascinated, and sharing comments about vicious battlefield injuries they'd seen.

A cry of triumph followed by a clatter of metal on metal drew back his attention to Emily, who looked relieved. "Got it! You can—"

He didn't need to be told twice, and with a grunt of relief, let the healing flow back into him.

The healer watched, apparently fascinated, even as he cleaned up the bloody remains of Emily's explorations. "It's already completely healed, and the swelling is going down." He glanced at Thor. "No wonder you Asgardians are so hard to kill."

Thor grunted. "Aye." He turned to Stark. "So, now, to New Asgard?"

###

The scent of car exhaust and the sounds of heavy traffic vanished as the door shut behind him, replaced by the filtered scent of cool central air and the murmur of the lobby's wall-mounted waterfall.

Effectively invisible in the business suit, tie and leather shoes, he joined the line to go through the metal detector and was waved through after presenting the security card that had cost fifteen grand (and two deaths) to counterfeit with enough quality to get him in here. Checking his watch as he put it back on, he gave a small nod. Two minutes thirty seconds ahead of schedule. Perfect.

Going deeper into the government building, he passed a variety of functionaries, all of them dressed similar to himself; the security card pinned to his lapel giving him all the cover he needed.

Reaching the janitor's closet in the sub-basement, he unlocked it and slipped inside. As soon as the door closed, he started his transformation, from mid-level functionary to janitor; a baggy set of loose blue overalls that he'd stashed here earlier went over the suit, and boots went over the nice shoes.

A minute after he'd entered as a paper-pusher, a janitor emerged from the closet, his hair tostled, not slicked back like the functionary's had been, pushing along the special cleaning cart he'd prepped.

He toddled over to the elevator, checking his watch again. One minute forty-five ahead of schedule. Very nice.

Again, he was invisible as he went through the hallway, pushing the cart of cleaning supplies. Reaching the conference room on the eighth floor, he punched in the access code after checking that the coast was clear; the door light blinked to green after he presented his forged security card to the scanner.

Then the serious preparations began.

Off went the janitor's overalls; they'd just interfere for the moment. Out of the underside of the cart came the rifle, already zeroed in and ready for deployment. Moving aside the tray of water glasses at the center of the table, he found the drill holes he'd already placed there, and, moving with practiced efficiency, he mounted the buffer plate of the rifle to the table. He'd have to leave it, but given that the gun had been... _borrowed_ from the country's military stockpiles and it was his job to implicate them, well, that made the parting a bit less sad. It was still a fine weapon, though. Capable of putting bullets through an area smaller than the size of a dinner plate at more than a mile.

Opening the window was difficult; it wasn't designed to open, but he'd practiced that as well, and the specialized tools that he'd brought with him in the cart made short work of the glass.

He checked his watch.

It was time.

Up on the table, sighting down the scope of the rifle. A month of preparation to get this. The target was paranoid, but justifiably so. He'd made many enemies and buried many bodies—not all of them dead at the time of burial—on his way to power, and he travelled everywhere with his enlarged security detail.

But there were times when they would let down their guard. When there was no threat that could possibly reach him.

Such as the ferry crossing the bay that the window overlooked. The small resort island it served was off in the distance and now...

Here it came.

He brought out his phone and set it on a tripod, allowing him to see the drone footage from one eye.

The target was a proud fellow, and in past attempts on his life, he'd been adamant about being _seen_ again as soon as possible.

So when the second drone—piloted by a patsy that he'd found—dove for the man as he lounged on the back recreation deck, his protective detail shot it out of the sky, and it exploded in an impressive display.

The protective detail immediately likewise exploded into action, dragging their protesting principal away from possible threats.

He watched, amused, as the target pushed his way up top to the observation deck, exactly as planned. He always had to make a production after an attempt, to show that he wasn't scared. With that confirmed, the drone flew off, so as not to provoke a possible reaction.

The ferry came into view a moment later... and while the recreation deck wasn't visible from the conference room, the observation deck _was._

With one last exhale, the Huntsman centered himself, focusing on the moment when the reticule and the target became one. Even with the dampening of the heavy conference table to absorb the recoil, it was still over three kilometers to the target, and even the slightest jarring could turn a hit into a miss. It was at moments like this that he resented his heartbeat, as it could throw off his aim.

The ship slid along his sight, and he saw the target, talking and gesturing angrily. Now, if only he'd hold still for the three and a half seconds it would take for the bullet to travel downrange...

There.

He'd paused, standing at the railing, gesturing angrily to the apparently empty skies.

Boom.

_Headshot._

As the body crumpled, the protective detail shouting for a medic, the Huntsman rose from the table. Company would be coming soon, and he would best not be here when they arrived.

Back on went the overalls, and the janitor emerged from the conference room, and returned his cart to the basement. Then the functionary emerged. Now came the tricky part. With the deed done, he couldn't speak the local lingo any longer... but he had other skills up his sleeves.

Or on his hand, as the case might be.

Reaching the exit, sure enough, it was already on lockdown, with angry looking men with guns at the exit.

But he was prepared for that. When nobody was looking, he tracked his thumb over the back of one of the lines etched onto the back of the ring... and he vanished from sight.

What came next was tricky. While they could literally look right through him, he still cast a shadow, for whatever reason, and he was still physically present, and blundering into an invisible person tended to be the sort of thing that jittery, angry men with guns had a very direct response to.

But he'd practiced at this sort of thing as well, and ghosted behind one of the guards as he left the building. As the man went over to a fellow in a military uniform featuring a great deal of gold rope and medals, the Huntsman peeled off from the guard, silently counting down the seconds until his invisibility failed. Making his way to an alley, the suit came off and went into the dumpster, the weakened threads at the seams letting him peel it off with panache, revealing jeans and a nondescript t-shirt underneath, and the leather shoes broke down to reveal sandals.

An American tourist emerged from the alleyway, jamming to a pair of headphones in his ears, who gave little attention to the caravan of official looking vehicles parked in front of one of the governmental offices of the Ministry of Justice. He just wandered away... and somehow still managed to slip through the perimeter at five blocks before it was established.

Reaching his hotel, he found that the news was busy with his handiwork, but for the moment, he still had time to get out.

His phone was blinking with a missed message, and, popping on his encryption app, he returned the call.

"Lizzy! How's my favorite client!?" he said in a cheerful drawl.

"Can it, Damon," the irate voice came through. "Are you available?"

"I'm between jobs at the moment. You know us freelancers."

"Very droll. Have you seen the news?"

"Regarding...? It's a big world, sweetheart."

There was a scoff on the other end of the line. "There was an... incident up north a short while ago, featuring some of your favorite people, and a new player, who plays rough. We'd like to see him taken off of the field for roughhousing. Message me after you've had a chance to see the video. We'll offer you your usual fee."

Once Lizzy hung up, Damon swiped his thumb across the screen a couple of times before footage acquired from anonymous sources within the police department greeted him on the screen. The footage appeared to be from a drone. As the footage rolled, he could see just who the drone belonged to; Iron Man. He scoffed. Tony Stark was a high profile target. But that didn't stop Damon from hating him for collaborating with Asgardians. But as the footage continued, he soon caught sight of a tall figure dressed in some bizzare looking leather ensemble, holding what looked like a heavy shield and sword. Damon rolled his eyes.

But then things got interesting as the mysterious man stood up after being _shot _and plowed through the Humans First! soldiers. He stopped the footage as the man kicked a heavy display case off onto one of their own. Then it all made sense. This man wasn't human. He had to be Asgardian, it would explain his strength and speed. It didn't sit right with him knowing that an Asgardian had taken a life.

He set his jaw and called Lizzy back. Her calm voice answered, "I take it I have your attention?"

"I don't do Asgardians, Liz, you know that," he paused, "but this one. I'll make an exception."

"Then you agree he must be dealt with.""Tell you what, Lizzy, I'll do this job for you for expenses plus ten percent instead. Think of it as my membership dues for the year," Damon said coolly.

There was a long pause on the other line before Lizzy said, "It's agreed then."

"I'll call you when the job is done." Damon then ended the call with a tap before looking back at the paused footage on his phone.

When dogs got violent, Damon knew the only thing to do was to put them down. And this dog certainly had a taste of blood. The thought of another Loki being loose sent dread up his spine. He sighed as children free on summer break raced past him. His jaw set the longer he thought about what he'd seen. Normally he avoided high risk targets, but he would do what he could to prevent a repeat of what happened in New York. He had a lot of prep to do for this special job. He couldn't just face off with an Asgardian bare-fisted. No, he'd have to do some shopping around for special protective armor in case he was drawn into a close range fight. Armor that could lend him strength to level the playing field. And he knew just the person.

###

"New Asgard?" Hiccup furrowed his brow at the suggestion and asked testily, "Did _anyone_ listen to me?" The group turned to him as he stood up carefully, minding his bent prosthetic. "I thought I made it very clear, I want to go home."

"Stark has told me about your home. And I agree with him," Thor reached out and rested his hand on Hiccup's shoulder sympathetically.

Hiccup rolled his hand off his shoulder. "I don't belong on Asgard. I belong with my people. I've been away from them far too long, and they need their chief," he said.

Nickolai made a choking noise. "Hiccup, you, you're a—chief?" he stammered, struggling to hold back excitement.

Hiccup looked to his friend and nodded.

Stark commented, "I'm beginning to see the family resemblance. Wonder Boy, you've got to realize that there's a strong chance your home is _gone_. And from what I'm hearing here, it's locked into some extra dimensional _hole_ in time and space, so even if it's still there—"

Hiccup, tired, in pain, and feeling lost, finally snapped at the armor-wearing man. "My _home_ is exactly where I left it. In the Bifrost. So, to find it, I need to talk to the _guardian_ of the Bifrost."

"Well, then come to New Asgard," Thor said calmly. "Heimdall is there."

"But will I be allowed to _leave_ again?" Hiccup asked pointedly. "Especially after _this_ mess?" He motioned to the damaged museum room. "I've made enough messes in my life to know that they're not going to want to let me out again after this."

"That's... a good question," Stark said, sounding pained.

"Thank you! So, yes, I need to speak to Heimdall, but I'm not going to New Asgard! I got sent to my room enough—"

He was abruptly not in the museum any longer, and a deep amused voice said, "Perhaps a meeting in the middle would be best, then?"

Hiccup turned around. He was standing in the middle of an open path laid with bricks, with foot traffic all around. A ship hovering in the air nearby told him where he was—on the small island in the middle of the sea that he'd seen from the air.

New Asgard.

He groaned. "I said I didn't want—whoa!" He jumped a foot in the air as an Asgardian woman literally walked through him as if he wasn't there. Not 'ignoring him', but she physically passed _through_ him.

"Oh. This is a dream-visit, like you did before," he said faintly.

Heimdall's voice was amused as he said, "Yes. I'm sorry for not communicating earlier, but the situation was fraught."

Hiccup turned to face the God of the Watch, and to his surprise, the tall man was no longer dressed in his fine armor, but in a motley and colorful assortment of tunics, hose and leather. It looked good on him, but it was definitely a change from his last image of the god—from his perspective, only a week ago.

Weakly, he said, "You changed your outfit."

Heimdall laughed. "That I did." His smile revealed even white teeth, but then he sobered. "As for your people..." He closed his eyes and seemed to focus. "They live."

Hiccup almost fell as his knees buckled in relief.

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet," Heimdall said mildly. "In order to avoid breaking my oaths to Odin when I first helped you, I needed to surrender control of the Bifrost loop in which your home is now contained. It is _out_ of my control, a self-sustaining loop." He nodded to Hiccup. "And you will be the one that has to free them. I cannot, again because of how I gave up control of it."

"Oh. But you can see them?"

"With difficulty and effort. For them, it has only been months. Your beloved and your scaly friend miss you terribly. They hope that you'll return, but that hope is beginning to fade, and they are facing great dangers from others inside, and need your help."

Hiccup felt his hands clench into fists. "I'm coming."

"I know." Heimdall hesitated and, clearly choosing his words carefully, said, "I cannot say more, but you will need your blade in order to free them. Unfortunately, I do not know where the true blade is."

"Oh for..." Hiccup barely kept from swearing at the god, who looked sympathetic. "Do you at least have some place for me to start looking?"

"You have a Midgardian scholar at your side, do you not? Ask him for some help. And Stark... while frustrating, is a good friend, and has found small hidden things before."

Hiccup sighed. "I see. Is there anything else you can tell me?"

"Yes. Good luck." With that, the vision ended, and he was back in the museum. The group of them were all looking at him expectantly.

"So, what did Heimdall have to say?" Thor asked cheerfully. "Don't worry, they don't think you're crazy for having walked around talking to someone they can't see. That's normal these days anyway."

Hiccup ignored the joke. "They live. It's been months to them, but the 'loop' they're in is out of his control. Apparently it's up to me to free them... and I'll need the _real_ sword," he held up the fake hilt, "to free them. The rest, he was under a _geas_ not to say anything."

Valkyrie scoffed. "Typical."

Martin spoke up. "But the actual sword was lost decades ago!"

Stark sighed. "Lost _how?"_ he asked.

"The Nazis took it!"

Impossibly, Stark perked up at this. "They did?"

"Yes! Along with half of our collection of Norse weaponry and artifacts!"

Stark beamed. "Finally some _good_ news."

Hiccup gave him a sidelong glance. "How is this _good_ news?"

"Because, during that history that you slept through, Wonder Boy, the guys who stole your sword..." he paused. "You know how to read, right?"

Hiccup gave him a flat look.

"Hey, hey, thousand-year-old Viking, your people were barbarians..." Stark said cheerfully. "So, yeah, the people who stole your sword, they kept records on _everything._ And there was another smaller group of them that had a real hardon for anything Viking, a group called Hydra... and _their_ records were published for the whole world to see a few years back." He held out his hand. "Let me take a look at this."

With a shrug, Hiccup handed the hilt over, and then his eyes went slightly wide at the sight of blue-white beams of light coming out of the sides of Stark's helmet that played over the hilt. Martin hurried back into the museum and brought out the blade that Hiccup had snapped off and held it in place for the lights to play over.

"How close was this replica, by the way?" Stark asked idly.

Nickolai said, "Good enough that Hiccup recognized it on sight."

"All right then." Then, in an air as if he was speaking to someone else, Stark said, "Friday, code up a search for this sword in the Hydra database and see what you can dig up."

Hiccup blinked as the same woman's voice that had told them about the attackers in this room said, "On it."

With that, Stark turned to him and said, "There we go. So, now, while we wait for my assistant to hunt down your wayward sword, let's get out of here and get you cleaned up, shall we?" He glanced to Thor, who had taken the hilt and was playing with it. "And remember, you're paying for this mess this time, not me!" There was a distinct glee in his tone.

Thor sighed.

###

Astrid slumped against the wall of one of the houses, exhausted. With the _blot_ coming up soon, visitors were starting to flood the island, and as Hiccup's betrothed, responsibility for organizing it had fallen squarely on her shoulders.

Yay.

Forcing more strength into her limbs, she walked tiredly down to the docks to greet yet more newcomers, until she passed one of the merchants having set up a small stall on the pathway.

"—it's a beautiful sketch, isn't it? Fine lines and—"

Astrid didn't hear the rest of his sales patter as she saw the parchment he was holding up for sale—and recognized it. It had been in one of Hiccup's sketchbooks—a book, she saw, that was lying open on the table next to several others, a _knife_ lying on the open pages.

She saw red and moments later, she had shoved the customer out of the way and had her fist in the merchant's tunic. "WHERE DID YOU GET THIS!?" she thundered.

"I, I was sold it!"

"BY WHO!?" she demanded.

"I, I don't sell out my suppliers!" the merchant—a trustworthy-looking Saxon she'd seen before—stammered. "It's bad for business."

Astrid growled deep in her throat before hauling the man up on his tip-toes. "'Bad for business'? _Bad for business!?_ Well, so's having your eyeballs spooned out and served on toast! So I suggest you try to _remember_ where you got these, because I'm getting _awfully __**hungry**!"_

* * *

AN: Giving my FF readers a heads up, Resurrection is undergoing a hiatus to build a buffer two chapters from now. So, please be patient :)


	7. Best Laid Plans

Astrid burst into the forge, the sack of defaced and damaged books in her hand. "RUFF! TUFF! YOU HAVE TO THE COUNT OF TEN!"

Gobber blinked from his spot behind his anvil. "Astrid, what—"

A clatter issued from Hiccup's workroom. Astrid dropped the bag and bolted for the door. Bursting in, she found the room having been ransacked and Tuffnut—well, half of him. His legs were sticking out of the window in the back.

Unslinging her ax, she ran back out of the smithy's front door and around the back, where Ruffnut was hauling on Tuffnut's arms, trying to free him from the window. On the grass around them were a bunch of Hiccup's books and smaller creations.

Astrid's blood, already up, boiled at the sight, and she leveled her ax at them. "You two are _so_ busted."

They both looked at her, and Ruffnut tried to scramble to her feet. Astrid swept her leg out from under her and had her ax at her neck a moment later.

"Lass!?" Gobber's voice called, alarmed. "What's going on?"

"Need you out here, Gobber!" she called. "As _witness._"

She heard him stepping over as Tuffnut tried to wriggle free of the window. He came up behind her a moment later. "What's this—oh Thor. You two didn't!"

"They _did!_" Astrid growled. "They stole Hiccup's books and notes and creations and were selling them to the merchants!"

"Hey, it's not like he'll need them any longer!" Tuffnut said—and as Astrid reared up over him, ax in hand and murder in her eyes, he held up his hands with a warding gesture and babbled, "I'm not saying he's dead! But what is Loki's grandson going to need with _books!?"_

Gobber made a noise like a cat being stepped on. "_What?"_

For a red-veiled moment, Astrid considered swinging and silencing Tuffnut before he could do any more damage, but killing one of her friends—even if that friendship had taken a beating and was now bleeding out on the ground—wasn't something she was willing to do. Not when Tuffnut was one of _Hiccup's_ best friends. She wasn't going to take Tuff away from him. Not yet...

So Tuff was able to say, "Hela didn't _manifest._ She was _under_ Valka the whole time, like Valka was a mask. When Stoick died, the spell unravelled!"

Gobber was making choking noises.

"So," Ruffnut continued, "if Hiccup is Hela's son, and Hela is Loki's daughter..."

"What does he need his books for? And we could use the money—"

Astrid reached down and hauled Tuffnut free by the collar of his tunic. "So you went behind my back and _stole _it?"

"Well, yeah," Tuffnut said. "You would have said no."

Astrid threw him down next to his sister with disgust. "I can't believe you two." She looked up at Gobber. "Keep an eye on them. I need to find Snotlout. He's the temporary chief, after all."

###

Tony looked out across the tarmac of Oslo's airport from the window of the First Class Passengers' Lounge; he'd gotten himself, Thor, Wonder Boy, the archeologist, the girl and her aunt inside by spending a _lot_ of frequent flier miles on their behalf; the museum staffer had come along as well to grill Wonder Boy on what it felt like to be a living fossil. So now Tony was at the window while Friday crunched the numbers from the Hydra dump, and the others were all in the next room, eating overpriced luxury airport food and talking. For his part, he was already getting some incredulous emails from the UN asking how the _hell_ he'd crossed the Atlantic so fast—information he wasn't giving them, to their irritation and his own amusement—among other bits and pieces.

He'd already let Pepper know where he was, and she was grateful to be in the loop, and had told Nikki's mom as well. Part of him was tempted to call up Strange again and portal the girl right back to her mother, but _that_ would require some explanation. Besides, she'd said that she wanted to finish this, as she was going to be using this whole adventure for a video documentary for class, of all things.

He'd already checked, and, yep, Nikki went to Peter's school. He made a note to have Midtown's water fountains checked, there was clearly an issue there...

Footsteps came from behind him, and Thor's reflection appeared in the glass, a massive mug of beer in hand.

"So... nephew, huh?"

Thor snorted. "Aye. Half-human, half-Asgardian, even."

"What happened to his father?" Tony asked idly.

Thor hesitated. "From what Heimdall told me, he was a good man, loyal and true. His last act was pushing his son out of the way of an attack by a mind-controlled ally." He inhaled and then sighed. "From his perspective that was... a little over a week ago."

Tony winced. "So... he lost his father, his family, his people, his friends... all in, what, two weeks? And then woke up _now?_"

"Aye, that about sums it up."

Tony looked back out the window, and muttered under his breath, "I am not adopting another teen with powers... I am not adopting another teen with powers... aww screw it. Friday?"

"Yes, boss. Still nothing," came from the helmet on the table nearby.

"Pop me up a holo-interface here. I've got some design work to do."

"Sure thing, boss."

A glowing light emitted from the helmet, creating his usual hologram design interface, and Tony started to fiddle with the images.

He glanced at Thor, who was watching, arms crossed, amused.

"Don't judge me."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Thor said cheerfully, and took a drink of his beer.

Tony worked at the light sculpture for a moment, and then asked, "So, why did _your_ dad hide his grandson away in a tomb?"

Thor scowled. "It would be a bit hard for him to admit that the boy was a blood relative when he'd done his best to literally erase the boy's mother from our history."

"So, he just put him on ice?"

"More or less," Thor said, and he sounded less than pleased, to say the least.

"Greaaat," Tony drawled sarcastically. "And now he's been dumped in our laps."

Thor edged around the table, bringing him more directly into Tony's field of view. "You know, with the young maiden there safe, you have nothing holding you here. You _could_ fly home to Pepper and let me handle my young relative..."

Tony considered it for a moment. He really did. But then he shook his head. "No, I want to keep an eye on the girl... and your nephew. At least for now. Yes, his heart's in the right place—I think, unless you Asgardians keep it someplace else?—but he's a thousand years behind the times, and while legally he's _your_ responsibility..." He took a deep breath and sighed. "I'm not going to leave a guy who still looks like he's learning to shave and just lost everything."

Thor smiled and took another drink.

Rolling his eyes at his friend, Tony called up the scan of the sword and highlighted an emblem from the hilt. "Hey, so do you know if this is important? I saw that he had it on his outfit, too." The stylized black dragon curled around itself in a fluid fashion, and Tony rather liked it.

Thor smirked. "Oh, yes."

"Alrighty then." Tony considered where to apply it when abruptly the helmet chimed. "Mr. Stark? I found something."

Tony paused. "What is it, Friday?"

"An item matching the scan to ninety-four-point-three-six percent certainty," a hologram of a digitally-scanned paper document appeared in the air, with an appended photograph of something that looked—more or less—like Wonder Boy's sword, although it was a blurry black-and-white picture, "was recorded as entering the Hydra archives in October of 1952. I am running down the chain of custody now."

The sounds of footsteps from behind him told Tony that it had been noticed, and he hurriedly hid the design he was working on, just as Wonder Boy, the two academics, the girl and her aunt appeared.

"What is it? Did you find it?" Wonder Boy asked, and Tony noted that his accent and his fluency with English were getting better and _fast._

Tony nodded towards the hologram. "Looks like." He considered for a moment. "And it's likely we're the first ones to notice it. Talk about a needle in a haystack!"

Hiccup blinked. "What do you mean?"

Tony opened his mouth, and then closed it again, considering for a moment how best to communicate it before giving a smile. Hey, it was a chance to show off a bit. "You said that you were literate, right?"

The younger man gave him another flat look, walked up to the hologram, and started to read off the digitized text. "'Item: Norse Sword. Description: One-hundred-six centimeters in length—"

"Smartass," Tony observed wryly. "Alright. What's the biggest library you've been in?"

Hiccup thought for a moment. "The Meatheads' library. I think they had about a thousand books. Of course, they're stuck in the bubble at the moment."

The archeologists looked like they were about to faint from sheer happiness from their spot behind Hiccup's shoulder.

Tony ignored them. "All right. A few years back some... friends of mine ran into this really, really bad conspiracy that had hidden itself in a group that was supposedly there to protect us. I'm not going to argue if they did the right thing or not, but what they did is they took that group's secret records—_all_ of them, including the conspiracy's—and put them up where anyone could read them."

"All their secrets? Where anyone could read them?" Hiccup repeated slightly incredulously. "And my sword was a secret?"

Tony nodded. "But to give you an idea of the haystack we're talking about here..." He considered and smirked slightly, playing with the hologram slightly, bringing up a holo-picture of a bookshelf loaded with books. "You said a thousand books." The bookshelf multiplied appropriately, growing to be a double-sized steel archival stack laden with a thousand books.

"Yes... they had an enormous library—and a really scary librarian."

Tony chuckled and made another tweak to the image. "Now imagine a thousand times that."

Hiccup blinked at the huge mass of illusionary bookshelves filling the air in front of him, row upon row, something the size of a good university library. "That's a lot of books."

"Heh. We're just getting started, Wonder Boy. The amount of information that they had stored was about twenty _million_ times that." Hiccup looked befuddled, and Tony tweaked the diagram again, starting with a 'zoomed in' bookcase and then expanding outwards, until the individual bookcase they'd started with was just a fuzzy blue dot among a field that would cover a large portion of a continent if it were actually printed out as hardcopy—five _zettabytes_ of information, enough to fill twenty trillion of those bookcases. As Hiccup—and Nikki—stared, Tony clarified, "A million is a thousand-thousand."

Hiccup paled and Tony continued. "So we found the one sheet of paper in that whole haystack about your sword," he nodded to the hologram, having it suddenly zoom back in and having a single page in one of the holographic books glow brighter, before zooming back out again for emphasis, "and now we're finding the paper trail saying where it went. But given how _much_ there is, I doubt that anyone else has found it before now."

Hiccup was looking a little stunned, and then choked out, "And where is this magic library?"

The archeologist coughed and looked at Tony. "I think that's enough future-shocking the poor fellow for one day, wouldn't you say, Mr. Stark?"

Before Tony could respond with a quip, Friday spoke up. "I have it."

"And where is it?" Hiccup asked intently.

"New York City."

###

All Snotlout had wanted was some peace and quiet to himself after everything had happened, ending in Drago's attack. But nooooo... things just had to get even _more_ complicated. That was Hiccup for you.

He glanced up at the sky which flickered with the colors of the Bifrost. It had been over a month since they'd arrived... _here,_ for want of a better term, and it was a sight he still had yet to get used to.

A shudder wracked his body as he watched the colors change and swirl in a hypnotic way. It didn't seem to have any adverse effects on them or their crops like it somehow did to Hiccup. It gave off a gentle warmth reminiscent of the sun which seemed to keep plant life alive. For now, it was day, and he could see the light of the Bifrost clearly. But when night... _set,_ for lack of a better term, weird things were seen. If one flew high enough, they could see other islands from the archipelago dangling upside down in the sky as though the islands were on a ceiling, their patchy fires and other lights being poor substitutes for stars. And Snotlout missed seeing the moon.

Meanwhile, some people were taking to watching the Bifrost for hours at a time. He'd already heard several people claim that drinking a potion made from ground-up dragon scales and watching the Bifrost would give them glimpses into their future.

Snotlout shook his head to clear it from the strangeness, and his thoughts wandered back to his cousin, who had yet to make an appearance as he'd promised.

He still had no idea how Hiccup could have jumped so high without Toothless' help—it wasn't like he'd been able to do that before. Well, he had _some_ idea—it clearly had to do with being the son of... well, a god, but what had changed? He would have to ask Hiccup if he ever decided to come back.

A snort escaped him at that passing thought. His favorite cousin, the offspring of Death Herself. That meant that his cousin was likely related to Toothless somehow. Not that he could say that they were siblings. Coming from his own experiences, siblings hardly ever got along unless they needed something. And Hiccup and Toothless worked together as though they were joined at the hips.

Another thought crossed his mind that made his guilt heavy and his chest pang with regret. A thought he often had to push away. But with time passing and no Hiccup showing up, it had begun to scratch the back of his mind more and more often. What if Hiccup had been so badly injured he couldn't return? What if Hiccup had gotten himself killed? What if he really had abandoned them for a cushy spot in Valhalla or somewhere else in Asgard?

He smacked one fist into his other palm. He had to stop himself from thinking, he was beginning to sound like Fishlegs in panic mode. Hiccup would _never_ abandon them!

Snotlout grumbled to himself as he entered his home and rummaged through the pantry for a block of ice to cool his growing headache; they'd put many of the blocks of Bewilderbeast ice down into the tunnels to keep food cold and preserved, and still had plenty. Finding one, he placed it against his aching crown and wandered into the open area. At least now that he was home, he could be alone and able to hear himself think clearly. He didn't understand how Stoick had done this job without losing his mind, or even how Hiccup had managed to keep his during their time on Dragon's Edge. He had almost lost his temper twice today already, and it was only early afternoon. One thing's for sure, he had newfound respect for the chief's duties. It had been bad enough when he'd had to banish the twins to Eel Island last week for stealing from Hiccup's personal items. He'd been almost as livid as Astrid had been, but they'd agreed that Hiccup had to be the one to cast judgement on them. So they were banished until he came back...

Opening the door to his room, Snotlout saw his father sitting at his desk. He yelped in surprise and dropped his ice block, which shattered on the floor.

His father didn't react, though, beyond finishing rolling up a parchment and handing it to his Terror where it was perched on his shoulder.

"Ah, good to see you back, boy-o," Spitelout said.

Snotlout narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Spitelout. "What is that you are sending?"

"Just thought I'd make things easier for you." Spitelout glanced between the discarded ice block on the floor and then his son. "After all, it's not easy being a chief without some assistance."

Snotlout gave his father an accusing glare, as he was unusually chipper—and the only time he was ever this happy was when things were going his way. "You still didn't answer my question. What are you sending by Terror mail?"

"Just taking care of business for you, son." Spitelout admitted and let his Terror free. The tiny dragon took off in a flurry of wingbeats.

"What business? What, Dad, you can't just take control! I'm the interim chief, not you!" Snotlout barked.

Spitelout turned, a glare that sent dread down Snotlout's spine and made him instantly regret what he had just said.

"Son, do you know why we flourished under Stoick?" Spitelout asked.

"Uhm," Snotlout couldn't put a word on it. Because he knew that whatever he said was wrong. Spitelout was always right.

"It's because we took care of _our_ own," Spitelout said and approached Snotlout. "Even if Hiccup returns, there's the chance that our tribe won't survive under his rule. He's soft, boy-o. Even _if_ he is a demigod, he's closer to Baldr than Thor! You know how he is! An outsider with a sob story shows up on our beach, and he shows her around! A dangerous warlord with a captive dragon army? Oh, he'll just go talk to him! He forgets how much work goes into a loaf of bread or a mug of beer, but he'll happily give it to some undeserving outsider rather than save it for our _own!_ And Hiccup _saved_ all of them? Well, they should show his tribe some _gratitude_ for the service!"

Snotlout looked up at his father as he stretched an arm around his shoulders and leaned against him. He regretted swallowing audibly seeing his hand curl into a fist as he raised it. Fearing that fist would make its home in his face.

"So now, outsiders have been sending requests for _more _aid. They want to hold the _blot_ here. They want Hiccup to mediate negotiations. They want his _help._ Well, if they want more than what they've gotten, they need to _pay _for it! So try to consider what I did a favor," he patted Snotlout on the back before finding his own way up the stairs and out of the house.

Snotlout gulped and rushed over to the desk and began shuffling through the parchments. Finding what he was looking for, he skimmed through the message and his eyes grew round. Rolling up the parchment, he quickly rushed out of the house.

He raced into the empty Haddock house, panting heavily. "Astrid! We've got a problem! MAJOR problem!" he shouted in panic as he waved the parchment in the air. He ran upstairs to the loft where he figured he might find her. As he cleared the stairs, sure enough, he found her in the loft right where he expected her to be. But he was not expecting to see what greeted him.

He found Astrid curled up beside Toothless. It almost looked as if they were asleep, but when he burst in, they both stirred, slowly. The vision made him stop in his panic and guilt began to replace fear. He steeled himself and asked, "Is, uh, is everything alright?"

"What do you think?" Astrid snapped, without looking at him and without the bite she usually had. Then her shoulders slumped. "No, it's not," she sighed. "Nothing is _alright! _But Toothless, he… he barely eats and… and…"

"How long has he been like this?" Snot asked when Astrid didn't continue.

Slowly, Astrid struggled to her feet and sat on a bed that was devoid of its owner, only his dragon and betrothed to be keeping it warm for his return. At first, he thought she wouldn't answer, instead turning to Toothless and running a hand along his scaly head.

"For almost a week now," she eventually murmured. "I think he can sense that Hiccup… that he's not coming back."

She sounded strange, her voice thick and breaking at the end, as if filled with suppressed tears. But that wasn't possible, right? No, Astrid Hofferson would never cry… would she?

Snotlout looked as though he had an upset stomach and he felt bad for what he was about to say. For a few minutes, he said nothing, just fiddled with the parchment and tried to find the right words.

Eventually, Astrid visibly pulled herself together and sat up straighter. "Well, Snotlout? What was this major problem of yours?" Astrid asked, sounding incredibly tired.

With a strangled sound, Snotlout slowly handed her the parchment. "I... I caught my dad sending out a parchment. That looks like one of the drafts."

Astrid read it over quickly, and Snotlout watched her eyebrows climb as she hit the threats that were barely hidden in the message. His dad's message basically amounted to _We have dragons and we have the gods on our side. The gods listened to Hiccup because he was of their blood. Berk will expect support and compensation for our protection. Bring them to the _blot_ next moon._

Astrid set it aside after a moment and then said, in a quiet but sarcastic tone, "Well. _That _won't cause a mess or anything." She looked up at him, expressionless. "How did he find out?"

Snotlout shrugged, feeling pained. "My guess? Gobber. Get a few drinks into him and he'd tell."

She sighed and hauled herself to her feet, giving Toothless one last scritch on the head. "Well. That's going to be a problem." She scowled before taking a deep breath and letting it out.

"Why aren't you upset?" Snotlout asked, worried.

She gave him a flat look. "What makes you think I'm not? Did you not see me just now? But I'm tired, and I'm remembering one of Hiccup's comments back at the Edge when I got upset with the twins. I could start yelling and shouting, but then we'd both be going off, and what good would _that_ do?"

Snotlout winced and nodded. "So... what do we do?"

She thought for a moment, then nodded as if to herself. "Even if we tell them all not to bring tribute... your dad let the cat out of the bag already. And I'm not going to lie," she said. "So I think we'll want to send a followup message, saying that, yes, the claim about Hiccup being descended from the gods is true. But nobody needs to bring _tribute_. Someone on Berk was trying to extort the other tribes, but we won't demand them."

"And what if they bring it anyway?"

"Then we don't accept it," she said, and her eyes narrowed. "And if your dad tries to_ make_ us accept it, we arrest him, and let Hiccup judge him when he comes back."

Snotlout swallowed at the thought of arresting his own father, but nodded jerkily before saying quietly, "What if… he doesn't come back?" Snotlout asked, growing worried. "What if he's forgotten about us and moved on?"

His words visibly hit Astrid. She grew tense, her hands balling into fists. "You've known him your entire life, Snotlout. Do you really, _truly_ think Hiccup would move on and forget about who he is? Or forget about us?" she demanded and began to descend the stairs.

Snotlout paused. Astrid was right, in all the times they'd been in trouble, Hiccup had never stopped fighting to be there for them. He was selfless that way. His cousin could make Tyr jealous with his heroics.

He took in a deep breath to steady his nerves. "You're right. You're always right," he admitted.

"What I wouldn't give for Hiccup to hear that," she said, forcing a smile.

###

As they crossed the tarmac of Oslo's airport, heading for the private jet that was going to take them to the US, Emily mused on the odd turns of chance and fate. Two weeks ago, she hadn't expected to find herself on the adventure of a lifetime; she'd just answered a call from a friend who needed help running down a lead on threadbare funding, and hopefully find something before some opportunists looted it. It had _sounded_ like a nice, quiet dig out in the middle of nowhere, a safe endeavor where her niece could come along for her school assignment. And now here she was, at the side of two of 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes', engaged in what could only be called a _quest_ on behalf of a thousand-year-old half-Asgardian Viking, and a genuinely heroic one in his own right at that. She had not expected him to put his life on the line to rescue strangers. But he'd gotten to know Nikki. And when Nikki was being threatened it had brought out an instinct to protect her. She couldn't thank him enough for all he had done.

Valkyrie, she had learned while they'd waited for Stark's information, had stayed behind to deal with the damage bill. Emily felt somewhat guilty about that, but Hiccup had only been doing what came naturally, protecting his people as well as the innocent caught in the action. And now apparently she, Nickolai, and Nikki had been _adopted_ by Hiccup as his 'people' after all they've gone through. It made sense for why he risked his life to protect Nikki.

If one left out the very _real_ danger they had been in, Nikki especially, all this could have been incredibly exciting. But with the newest additions to their party, Emily was swamped with keeping Nikki on a short leash so she wouldn't constantly pester Thor or Stark... So, instead, she'd taken to pestering Hiccup—with Nickolai and Martin's support, as they wanted copies of the video. Now that Hiccup's English and Norwegian had improved to the level of conversational chatting, the two archeologists wanted to debrief him. They'd spent the _hours _in the airport lounge with them asking Hiccup questions about life a thousand years ago. Thankfully, Hiccup seemed to be doing better, emotionally speaking, with the confirmation that his home and fiancee were alive, well, and waiting for rescue, and had gamely gone along with the polite interrogation.

As they approached the jet, Emily glanced at the young man. Hiccup, with Nickolai's help, had certainly cleaned up nicely. Once that scruffy beard had come off in one of the airport restrooms, Emily had found that a strong jawline and a number of adorable freckles had lurked underneath. His fiancee was a lucky woman, that was for sure. Also, he wasn't hobbling anymore. With his strength, she watched him straighten his prosthetic—while they were waiting—to the tune that he didn't have a spare and had to make due with what he had. A fresh black t-shirt—sans bullet holes—completed the ensemble, with the remnants of Hiccup's armor, cape, and tunic having been left in Martin's safekeeping. Which, Emily was sure, meant that they'd be whisked off to the museum lab for analysis by a number of very giddy archeologists as soon as possible.

Once Stark had tracked down the stolen sword, he'd pulled strings; it had taken a few hours, but the State Department had—with Stark's nudging—reluctantly granted Hiccup a provisional visa to visit the US, in the company of a US national who had sworn to act as his minder. Specifically, Stark. So Stark had gotten a jet from some timeshare company, and they'd be flying back direct to La Guardia.

As they reached the stairs up to the jet, Hiccup looked up at the sleek aircraft and swallowed.

"What's wrong? You've flown before in one of these, haven't you?" Stark asked Hiccup.

"They're a little, uh, intimidating," Hiccup said.

Emily reached up and gently lay a comforting hand on his shoulder, seeing the ancient Viking was still insecure about flying in airplanes. And who could blame him? Something big and made of metal theoretically should not be capable of flight. But science and technology had a way of defying all expectations.

"You'll have plenty of time to adjust. It's a nine hour flight back to the States, plus layovers," Stark said.

Thor slapped his nephew on the shoulder. "And they're very comfortable! And Stark promised me that there'd be beer aboard!"

Hiccup gave a shaky laugh at that. As before, Hiccup anxiously boarded but relaxed once they were inside and everyone had settled down. He seemed to enjoy the takeoff a lot more this time.

Once the _Seatbelts _sign turned off, Stark turned to him. "So, Wonder Boy, you get the sword from this Hydra vault. Then what?"

Hiccup swallowed as the stewardess came by and gave him a bottle of beer. "Then I use it—somehow—to get my home freed from the bubble of the Bifrost it's caught in."

"And how will you do that?"

Hiccup took a deep swallow of the beer and put the bottle down in the cupholder. "I don't know! It's not like Odin gave me instructions before he put me on ice!" he said with a scowl. "I'm _hoping_ he left a message with it that'll tell me what to do. Other than that, I'm making this up as I go along!"

Stark nodded. "Got it."

They started to go over what they did know; most of it went over Emily's head, but she paid attention as best she could. Apparently the Bifrost was a wormhole that the Asgardians could command—or at least they could before their homeland had been destroyed—and Heimdall had split off a portion of it into a self-contained time-slowed bubble that held a thousand square miles or so of ocean and a few dozen islands. The time dilation was apparently on the order of thousands to one.

Once Thor had finished his explanation, using one of Stark's holograms to illustrate the bubble's general properties, Stark tapped his chin in thought as Hiccup examined the hologram.

"So, how do we pop this bubble—and do it in a way that doesn't end with Wonder Boy's family ending up as soap scum?"

Thor shrugged. "I am not an expert on the Bifrost. I don't know."

"Well, I guess we need to handle Step One first," Stark said. "But as for experts..." he gave Thor a significant look. "I think I _do_ know an expert."

Thor looked at him quizzically for a moment, and then got whatever Stark was hinting at. "Oh. _Him._ Aye, if anyone would know, it would be him."

"Who is 'him'?" Nikki asked.

Stark turned and held a finger up to his lips before typing something out; the hologram shifted for a moment, to display words that read, _Plane's bugged. Don't want to out the guy._

Nikki's eyes went wide and then she nodded.

"'Bugged'?" Hiccup asked.

Emily sprang into action. "It's a slang term in modern English. It can mean harassed, bothered, has a persistent small problem, or is being spied on," she said, giving a heavy nod at the last, which Hiccup seemed to pick up on.

Stark snorted. "You've got a lot to learn, Wonder Boy. There's so much out there to be seen."

Hiccup looked between them, then he glanced over to Emily, who was sitting at his side. "You said you live in this 'New York City.' Is it anything like Oslo?"

"It's a little more compact than Oslo, but yes," she said.

"It's also noisier, and more crowded," Nikki added.

"At least, the downtown areas are," Emily said.

"Will it be crowded when we land?" Hiccup asked.

"We'll be landing at the La Guardia Airport; it's next to the section of the city where your sword is," Stark interrupted, "but we won't see crowds until we go further into the city."

"How many people resided in your village, Hiccup?" Nickolai asked curiously.

Hiccup blinked and said, "Last I remember, about seven hundred, give or take. Probably more, hadn't had time to take a head count before... Hela happened.."

Emily could see that Nickolai was having an academic's crisis while at the same time trying to contain his excitement. "Well, New York City is by far larger, with far more people."

###

Thumb resting on the back of his ring, just in case things had changed and he needed to make a quick exit, Damon knocked on the door to the abandoned warehouse, using the special rhythm he'd learned once upon a time.

Looking from side to side so the hidden cameras that he knew would be there could get a good look, he waited patiently, and hoped that he wasn't about to get vaporized.

After a few minutes, his shoulders developing an increased itch, the door buzzed and unlocked, and he entered, again hoping that it wasn't so that they could dispose of him more privately.

But that thankfully wasn't the case. "Damon!" a cheerful voice called out. "Long time no see! How have you been? What've you been doing? Nice tan, man!"

Damon grinned and clasped the lanky man in an embrace. "Max! Good to see you!"

Max Dillon backslapped him cheerfully. "Good to see you too, 'Mon! So, what, you giving up the hired killer life and coming back to join the crew again? You always were good at picking out the good stuff from the xeno-trash."

Damon shook his head. "Nah, Max, I'm here as a customer. Is Phineas in?"

Max rolled his eyes. "Yeah, the Tinkerer is in. C'mon." As they walked back into the warehouse, they chatted. "So, how's life doing yah?" Max asked.

"Eh, I travel the world, see exotic people, and put bullets in their heads. It pays the bills and, damn, I have fun doing it!"

Max snorted. "You always did have that slight psycho edge to you, 'Mon. So, what do you need?"

"I need a suit."

Max smirked. "Men's Warehouse is a few miles downtown."

"_Funny._ No, I need one of Phineas' supersuit specials. I might end up going toe-to-toe with someone out of a human being's weight-class, and I need an edge."

"What sort of weight-class are we talking here?" Phineas' voice interrupted. "Good to see you again, Damon. So, what are you going to be fighting?"

Damon took a deep breath. "Asgardians."

"Ooof!" Max exclaimed. "You're going hunting for _Thor?"_

"No, the new mad dog that they unleashed. Check the news from Oslo. He's got a taste for human lives now, and needs to be put down. Humans First! is footing the bill for this, before he makes like Loki and redecorates another city with bodies."

Phineas and Max shared a look, before Phineas nodded. "All right then. Well, for old times' sake, I think I can let you into the special stock..."

"Awesome," Damon said. "So, what do you got?"

"Eh, a few things. Super-suits are tricky, and a good way to draw too much attention. I tend to make them on custom order rather than off the rack," Phineas said. "So... hmm... Thor? I think electrical insulation is going to be a must... and probably flight..."

As he mused, Damon's phone buzzed. Figuring it was Liz wanting an update, he pulled it out, but instead, it was a news briefing pushed to his app, and he felt the blood drain from his face.

"Oh god..."

"What? What is it, 'Mon?"

"The Asgardian, my _target._ He's coming here! To the States, to New York!" He felt rage start to bubble up inside himself. "What the flipping fuck are those fuckheads at the fucking State Department fucking thinking!? Are they out of their fucking minds? Did they forget what happened here last time we had Asgardians jonesing around the City?" He waved towards the skyline that would be on the other side of the wall. "This guy already pulped some people like they were bugs, and now they're bringing him _here?_ Under Stark's watch!?" He spat. "Like he's done such a great job in the past! Remember Ultron!?"

Max whistled. "Well... fuck."

Phineas had his phone out and was rapidly typing. "No idea what they're here for... but one of the guys going with them is an archeologist... hmm..."

While Phineas thought, Damon felt like things were spinning out of control. He liked to take his time; while he could manage deadlines, he usually had months or years of background information on the target already assembled. But all he knew about this alien mad dog was that he could crush human beings like _bugs..._

And he had just been invited to the biggest hive on the planet.

Damon swallowed. He was going to have to up his game. Hardcore.

"I've got something," Phineas said. "Net traffic from Stark says it has to do with some Hydra crap; he was querying one of the databases pretty hard." He looked at Damon. "Hey. I've got an offer for you."

"Yeah?"

"I'll build your suit, and even throw in some surveillance and assault bots as a package deal, for your Humans First! buddies to cover, at cost... and if you find what they're looking for, or find something interesting, I get first dibs. Sound good?"

Damon nodded without hesitation. "You got it, Phineas. You're a lifesaver."

"Yeah. _Mine._ I remember the Battle, and I don't want Stark and his alien buddies triggering round two while I'm in the hazard radius," Phineas said curtly.

"Ouch. Yeah... that... yes," Damon said with a pained nod.

Max was nodding as well. "But one problem for the bots, especially when going up against Stark."

"What's that?"

"AI. We don't have good ones, and he's hacked our shit before. So we keep them dumb, with human operators."

"Human operators?"

"Yeah. Set up a VR interface, and use that, instead of trying to go for an AI that Stark will hack and turn into a puppet," Max said. "But you don't got a crew to run them for you."

Damon thought, and then a slow smile grew across his face. "I think I have just the solution there. If I run out and get a few dozen, can you hook up those drones to some VR glasses and game controllers?" He grinned. "I remember this _great_ arcade I used to play at..."

* * *

AN: I'm sure that some of you will be confused by the twins saying Hela is Loki's daughter. According to real-world Viking beliefs, Hela-or Hel-is the daughter of Loki. Marvel altered the religious figures for their purposes. As for how the MCU timeline Norse religion exists...

Think of the Telephone game. Where you pass on a phrase through a long line of people. And for a while, the phrase remains consistent at the beginning of the line, but the further the phrase passes the line, the more obscure it gets. That's what's happening with the MCU Norse religion and why it's different. It's been passed down from word of mouth through _generations_.


	8. A New World

Stark had promised, and he'd delivered. The flight, plus a layover in Iceland, had taken half a _day_. And while Hiccup was eager to find his sword and reunite with his people, his body had decided that a nap during flight was more important. He wasn't expecting to close his eyes and nod off as he watched the world fly by underneath them. With a beer or two in him, plus his worries at ease, he'd managed—and managed to stay in his seat.

When he opened his eyes again as turbulence jostled him, Hiccup found that he was not prepared for the sight on the other side of the glass. They were coming in for a landing at the airport and were just low enough that Hiccup could get a glimpse of the city from the air. He let out a squeak of shock at the sight.

Buildings stretched to the sky like sea-stacks; they were so densely and evenly packed, he wasn't sure how someone could walk between them. Fae-lights of many colors scattered throughout the city, as if the stars themselves were on the ground. Upon closer inspection, he could see that the lines of fae-lights belonged to modern vehicles, as they moved while others did not. And that made the _true_ scale of the buildings even more evident. Those weren't footpaths between the buildings—those were _streets._ And the lights... each row was an entire floor in and of itself.

The scale of the buildings boggled his mind—made worse by Nikki leaning over and pointing out the tallest one. "That's Freedom Tower; it's over a hundred floors tall." He turned to look at her, shocked, and she grinned. "Pretty neat, right?"

He nodded, feeling a bit numb, and watched the rivers of lights below, knowing that each small pair of dots was a vehicle like those he'd travelled in.

Hiccup wasn't sure his eyes could grow any wider as they came closer and closer to the port.

Seeing the mass of buildings seeming to scrape against the sky itself, Hiccup looked over to Nickolai, who was just now stirring from his own slumber, and asked, "How do your buildings stand so tall without collapsing from the wind or their own weight?"

Nickolai yawned, groaned tiredly and said, "It's a bit difficult to explain. But we use sturdier material."

"Steel, mostly," Stark offered, and Nickolai shot him a dirty look.

"And are all of those buildings great houses?" Hiccup asked, remembering how it wasn't unusual on Berk and other Norse settlements for homes to house five or six families.

"Some are; we call them apartments," Stark said. "But others are schools, offices, hospitals, businesses, stores..."

"A-part-ments?" Hiccup rolled the unusual word on his tongue.

"Homes stacked on top of one another. Sometimes two or more homes on the same floor of the building," Nickolai interjected.

Nikki pointed. "Yep. Mine's there, up near Midtown, see?" She pointed to one cluster of lights otherwise indistinguishable from the ones around it.

That was enough to placate Hiccup's curiosity as he 'mhmm'ed in understanding and turned back to the window, putting the knowledge away for later, even as he drank in the sights. Steel buildings... Wow! He remembered having spotted a 'bookstore' in the Iceland airport, and with Nickolai's resigned approval and some of Stark's money, bought a stack of books from 'Penninn Eymundsson' on a variety of topics, including history. But he hadn't had a chance to read any of them yet. And now, he was regretting not having found books on architecture, too.

"If you want a tour, I can play tour-guide," Nikki offered, with her 'smartphone' pointed at him to record his reactions. "This is my backyard, after all."

Stark yawned. "Tomorrow, kiddo. It's midnight, local time." He glanced at his watch. "Yeah, I'm going to get my ass chewed out once we land..."

Thor chuckled. "Pepper hasn't called?"

"Oh, she did. But I'm going to get the rest of it in a bit."

A long runway with more lights was coming closer, and Hiccup pointed. "Is that the airport?"

Stark nodded and Hiccup glanced out the window again as they sank below the level of the city's buildings. Amazing.

Some of the traders had told stories of the great and vast cities to the south of the Archipelago—London, Paris, Miklagard—but even the greatest tales he'd been told _paled_ in comparison with this place.

A solid bump told him they'd landed, and as the airship moved to the dock for them to disembark, Nikki was already planning a list of places to take him, and foods to introduce him to.

"If you think you enjoyed the Airport grilled-cheese, wait till you try shawarma!" Nikki said eagerly.

Stark perked up and said, "Oh, introducing Wonder Boy to shawarma? I know a nice place."

"Ah, let's not rush the poor boy into trying something his palette isn't used to," Nickolai—who had taken it upon himself to watch Hiccup's diet—objected.

Nikki snorted. "That's the entire _point_ of traveling. Trying new foods!"

"I seem to recall you turning your nose up at lutefisk," Emily teased.

Nikki pouted. "The idea sounded better than it looked."

Hiccup looked between them but forced a smile nevertheless. He had tried the dish Nikki called 'grilled-cheese'. It was delicious, and definitely something they _could_ have made when he was a kid, but most Norse dishes were roasted or boiled. But the concept was simplicity itself—sliced bread, butter, cheese, heat until melted. The version she'd introduced him to had other vegetables in it, including the very tasty tomato, which had added a nice bit of juiciness.

So far, his experiences with modern foods were generally positive—and it was good to see that beer hadn't really changed much in a thousand years, except for whichever _idiot_ had decided that adding bitter _hops_ to the brew was a good idea. Hiccup had spat out the mouthful of bitter brew when he'd tried _that_. Although, according to Stark, having accessed the infinite library to find out, had informed him that said idiot had apparently been dead for almost two hundred years before Hiccup had been born—a Christian Abbot named Adalhard in France, who had written about it in AD 822. Why _that_ idea had needed to stick around while his people hadn't, Hiccup had no idea. But the modern liking for bitter tastes aside—chocolate, hoppy beer and _coffee_ (the last of which made Hiccup shudder in memory)—he was generally enjoying the new foods, and was looking forward to what the mead hall kitchens would be able to do with the new ingredients and techniques if... _when_ he returned to Berk.

So, not sure what 'shawarma' was, or if he was being set up for a prank of some sort, he still played along. "'Shawarma', eh? I'll give it a try!"

Nickolai sighed. At length.

The wait as the airship came to a stop felt interminable, not helped by the fact that he had to stay strapped in so long as the big fae-light at the front of the cabin remained lit. It showed the modern belaying lines, and, he'd been told, so long as the light was on, he had to stay 'buckled'—although they weren't really buckles. He'd examined his on the flight to Oslo, and found that they used spring-loaded locking mechanisms that could be released with the pull of a lever. The instant the light went off, he popped the belt and stood, eager to be on solid ground once more. He was not used to flying for such an extended time, even when he had the luxury of riding dragonback. But at least these chairs were more comfortable in comparison to a saddle: they didn't even give you saddlesores!

Exiting the airship brought him out into humid—almost stickly—air, and he broke out into sweat almost instantly as he went down the metal stairs to the vast hard and gray road that the airships used to land and takeoff. Still other airships were nearby, and he heard the roar from the 'engines', and felt a gust of wind—which blew _something_ solid right into him. He jerked, going to push it off, only for whatever it was to _fly off of him._

Startled, he went for his sword, only for his hand to find the sheath empty, even as he laid eyes on the object. A disk about the size of his spread hands, it buzzed as it hovered a few feet off the ground; a small group of red and green fae-lights flickered on its underside and it seemed almost... _curious_ as it circled him, hovering like a fly or hummingbird.

He reached out, wanting to touch the object and see just how it worked—and whether or not it was alive—but it pulled back higher into the sky just out of his reach, only to be right back in his face again once he lowered his hand. All Hiccup could do was just gaze in awe at it, hypnotized by its odd sounds and movement as he watched it, at least until a hand reached out for it from behind him and it immediately evaded just out of reach for a moment before taking off and disappearing over the roof of the port. He looked behind him to see Stark, his jaw set.

Stark scowled. "Paparazzi…"

Hiccup tilted his head and asked, "What's Pa-pa-razzi?" Another strange and new word.

"Scavengers of the rich and famous. Probably found out about you coming here, Wonder Boy, and they wanted to be first to get a glimpse of the newest Asgardian," Stark explained.

"Is that what that loud fae was? Was that paparazzi?" Hiccup asked.

Stark paused, as what Hiccup had said apparently made no sense to him. Then a look of realization replaced his confusion. "Oh, that? No. That was a drone sent to spy on us. It's illegal to fly them here, and _very _dangerous if one got sucked into an engine…" Stark said that last through clenched teeth.

"You think those Humans First! creeps spread the word?" Nikki asked, exiting behind Stark and yanking her rucksack over her shoulders, being mindful of her injured arm, which made Hiccup feel a pang of guilt.

"Maybe," Stark said thoughtfully. "But our quiet arrival just became first page news…"

"Cool!" Nikki blurted.

"Not cool. That means we'll be under the microscope, not just by the United Nations, but the general public as well."

"If you wish, I can run interference with them," Thor offered, exiting the plane last.

Stark shook his head. "I'll just get into contact with Security. And have them sort out which shithead piloted that drone."

Hiccup blinked, not entirely sure of what was going on. But the tone of mood suddenly shifted from excitement to tense, which made him anxious.

Once the group had begun walking across the large gray road to the indoor dock, his uneasiness had subsided. Since having disembarked, he had found himself adjusting to the warm and humid climate. A warm breeze buffeted him and it was refreshing feeling it through his new shirt, he caught himself enjoying it. It was certainly a change of pace from growing up in frigid temperatures.

"There he is!" A cheerful voice greeted them as they entered the indoor dock.

Hiccup looked through his group of friends to see a large man with broad shoulders, his arms spread out invitingly as he waited for them inside. He seemed on friendly terms with Stark.

"Had a good flight?" the man asked. After a moment, his tone suddenly shifted from friendly to anxious. "After Friday told me about this," he hefted a strange box that he was carrying, "and that it was for your newest _adoption, _I may have had to drop the news to Pepper. She wants to talk with you ASAP."

Stark snorted. "Is that all? Here I was afraid I was going to be grounded and forced to sleep on the couch."

The other man smirked. "I wouldn't rule that out."

"Great," Stark said sarcastically as Hiccup listened and hid a smirk of his own. Who was this _'Pepper?_ Stark's mother?

"So, who'd you adopt this time? And, hey, did you get a glimpse of that artifact that blew up the internet?" the man asked eagerly.

"As a matter of fact," Stark lifted his hand and motioned Hiccup forward with a flap of his wrist. "I brought it home as a souvenir."

The man gaped incredulously as the group parted and Hiccup walked forward.

"_Him_?" the man asked and looked him up and down. "So, what? We got Vikings making a comeback now?"

"Something like that," Stark said with a smirk.

The man scoffed. "What's next? Dragons?"

Hiccup froze.

Stark scoffed. "You know dragons are just misinterpreted dinosaur skeletons."

"Yeah, well. I've been reading a lot of weird crap lately that kinda makes sense, you know? And, hey, the Asgardians—no offense, Thor—"

"None taken," Thor said with a nod.

"—admitted that they came here before! So all of that ancient astronaut stuff could be real! So there might have been dragons and they got wiped out by, say, alien big game hunters or something. But there was something here that a _lot_ of ancient societies knew about, something big, and now it's not. And it wasn't misidentified bones! How does a giant fire-breathing lizard just up and vanish?"

Stark gave the man a deadpan stare and looked like he was about to say something before Thor interrupted, "To be fair, dragons do exist on other worlds. I was chased by one in Muspelheim."

"See!?" the new man said triumphantly.

Hiccup swallowed and looked over to Nickolai and Emily. They were the only ones who knew that dragons existed, thanks to him letting it slip back at the cave when they first met. Something on his face must have shown, for the new person noticed.

"What's wrong with him?"

Stark glanced over at Hiccup. "You alright, Wonder Boy? You're not looking too hot. Flight disagree with you?"

"No, no, I'm fine," Hiccup forced out. Again he looked over to Nickolai with a pleading gaze.

Worried, Nickolai quickly approached him and placed the back of his hand on his forehead. "You don't feel warm, but I think it would be a good idea to get you a medical physical. You're not immunized against modern pathogens and you'd be susceptible to any number of diseases, superhuman healing or not. And with the wave of outbreaks lately I would rather you be safe than sorry."

Hiccup wasn't sure exactly what that all meant, but it was a change of topic away from speculation on dragons. So he replied, "If you think that's a good idea, then sure."

"We've got a doc back at the facility," Stark said. "He can look Wonder Boy over and get him his shots. But first... Happy?"

"Yeah, Mr. Stark?"

"Let's get Wonder Boy suited up."

The other man—Happy? Was that a name or a description? Although Hiccup supposed that he had no right to criticize—held out the case. On the side it read 'Stark Industries', and a long seam along the sides, with a hinge at the base, gave a hint as to how it would open.

Then Happy did something and the case popped open, revealing a helmet clearly patterned on Norse helms, with a nose-guard and eye-slits—strongly resembling his own helmet, long since lost, now that he thought about it—lying on top of a cuirass patterned after what he'd lost back in Norway. But it was obviously only patterned. Not only was the material different than the leather he'd worked with originally, the layout was different, complete with his crest on the breast, sending a bolt of loneliness and tempered grief through him.

He pulled the cuirass out—and then noticed that Happy had stepped back. But the case was still there—_hovering in midair._

"Uh..."

He ducked his head under the case and saw four blue-ish lights at the corners, apparently keeping the case aloft.

Stark snickered. "Go ahead, try it on. In fact... let me help." He reached for his wrist and touched a button.

"I can dress myself," Hiccup started to protest—only for the armor to _leap_ out of the box and slide onto him, the helmet slamming onto his head, the gloves slipping onto his hands, and the trousers and cuirass locking around his legs and torso with solid-sounding clicks. All in all, he was covered in a fraction of a second.

Stark burst out laughing at his yelp of surprise.

Wanting to give Stark the best glare he could, Hiccup reached up and went to pull off the helmet, only to find that it wouldn't budge. After a moment, he let his hands droop and sighed. "Very funny, ha ha."

Stark chuckled. "Don't worry, Wonder Boy. Here."

Lights and emblems seemed to appear in Hiccup's vision, and he found that he could read them.

"Toggle 'Civilian Mode,'" Stark said.

Hiccup twitched and found that there was a symbol that had that writing on it, the symbol looking like the toiletry-facility man-outline wearing trousers and a jacket. It took a moment and some very strange shiftings of his hands, eyes and fingers, but he managed to get the symbol to glow and then—

"Whoa!"

In what might be the winner for the _strangest_ sensation he'd ever experienced, the armor _flowed_ around him. In a matter of moments, he found himself wearing a set of what felt like leather gloves with the fingertips cut off, a necklace, a black leather jacket featuring more of those 'zippers', a pair of glasses like Martin had been wearing—in which he could still see some of those symbols hiding in the edges of his vision—a pair of heavy boots and found that his father's belt was _much_ bulkier now...

Wait.

A _pair_ of boots?

He looked down and saw that he apparently had two feet again.

"What the—?"

"It seemed like a good place to stash the extra mass," Stark said cheerfully. "It's just hanging out on your prosthetic. Should give you a good grip on slippery terrain, and we'll get you a good prosthetic later that can take the kind of forces you can dish out. I've got some ideas there."

More commentary had to wait, though, as Nikki, her voice awed, asked, "Is he an Avenger now?"

"What's an 'Avenger?'" Hiccup asked, looking to Stark.

"They are Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Stark and I are Avengers," Thor said, smiling proudly at Hiccup.

"I'm considering it, but for now, wear that."

"I can't take it!" Hiccup protested. "I would be in your debt—"

"Then consider it a gift and an investment. One day, you're gonna pick a fight you can't win and I don't want you getting shot by something _bigger._ Yeah, you handled pistol bullets pretty well, but I doubt that'll save you against machine guns, or stuff like those backpack bombs."

Hiccup considered, remembering the explosion, and then nodded. "All right. I accept it in the spirit in which it was given."

"The 'spirit' was so that you don't get sent to some afterlife inside a gemstone," Stark groused under his breath, making Hiccup give a glance and wonder what sort of gods Stark followed.

Adjusting the jacket and the glasses, Hiccup started to wonder what else they could do with Stark's enchantments. He was torn between wanting to learn the jacket's secrets, exploring the vast city, and finding his sword. But he knew that until Stark's servant found the location of the blade, he had no choice but to enjoy the moment.

###

T-mails were pouring in and Astrid found herself swamped by interrogative replies pursuing the truth. She could only continue with the official story—Spitelout was spreading rumors, there was nothing else beyond that—and reassure everyone not to worry about bringing elaborate offerings. But she still needed to confront Gobber.

She tried to put up a good front to mask her growing anxiety. But as she walked through the village she could hear murmurs and feared that word had already spread like a wildfire.

She took a deep breath, steeling herself as she stood before the forge. She could hear Gobber already at work inside.

"Gobber?" Astrid called into the forge as she walked through the side entrance.

"Ah, afternoon lass!" Gobber said cheerfully. "I hope the stress of organizing the big blot isn't—" he turned to see Astrid and immediately saw her stressed and tired gaze. "Er, oh."

"You didn't by any chance, have a mead with Spitelout recently, did you?" Astrid asked, remembering to tread lightly.

"Well, now, let's see. Today's Frigga's day," he counted on his flesh and bone fingers as he thought," last I remember seeing Spitelout was Odin's day."

"And do you remember what you two talked about?"

"Can't say that I do, lass. I must've had a few too many. I'm sorry," he said apologetically.

"It's okay, Gobber. I was just curious," she reassured him. She couldn't pin the blame squarely on Gobber. After all, just about everyone knew his weakness, and Spitelout would have surely known this being on Stoick's council with him. It just made her blood boil knowing the man exploited that weakness for his own personal gain. For Snotlout's sake, she hoped Spitelout would not do anything irrational the day of the blot.

A familiar voice echoed over the plaza and Astrid felt dread pool in the pit of her stomach.

"Astrid!" Dagur called.

"Astrid, I know you're here, Stormfly follows you everywhere," Heather's rational voice followed her brother's.

Well, so much for hoping to pretend to not be there. She swallowed as she exited the forge and watched the Berserker siblings land, dismount and walk up to her.

"We need to talk," Dagur said flatly.

Heather held her hand out in front of Dagur, stopping him. "I'll handle this. Astrid, are the rumors true?" she asked with a more gentle tone than Dagur.

"Depends. Which rumors?" Astrid asked, hoping to buy a little time to come up with an alternative.

Before Heather could reply, Dagur lost his patience. "The one about Hiccup being a god!" he blurted.

Astrid froze on the spot.

"Word is spreading that Hiccup isn't outside of this… bubble. But rather, he's in Valhalla with the Aesir and as a result, our people have been trying to get his attention," Heather said.

"So, is it true?" Dagur asked again.

Well, she'd been expecting this, and she very well couldn't pull a fast one with either Berserker. So much for keeping it a secret.

Astrid breathed in deeply and said, "It's true, Hiccup is a demigod. But I have faith he's outside of this bubble right now, trying to find a way to get us out."

"So baby brother Hiccup turns out to be a _god_? I always wondered why he was so hard to kill," Dagur reflected on the memories for a brief moment. "Hey, so has it finally sunk in yet?"

Astrid's brow popped up, not sure by what he meant.

"The reality that you slept with a god! Hello?!"

Astrid grit her teeth and was about to punch him herself before Heather shoved him back with an elbow to his gut. He objected with a yelp.

"That's not why we're here," Heather hissed at him, "we were wondering about this." She pulled out one of Spitelout's letters and handed it to Astrid.

It only took her a moment to realize what it was. "No, you don't have to bring offerings. Someone was trying to take advantage of Hiccup's legacy. But the situation is being taken care of," Astrid reassured.

###

As they made their way to the front entrance of the airport, the tension steadily increased in the group. Hiccup could tell in the way Stark held himself with his shoulders stiff and his jaw tight, and it seemed to be spreading among the others. Then, as they reached one of the main corridors, a wall of extremely clear glass separating them from the street outside, Hiccup could see a line of people outside the building, pointing boxes with glassy eyes at them, and lightning-bright fae-lights lit up the night in dizzying bursts. Behind them was a massive chanting crowd, at least ten times larger than what he'd seen in Oslo. They were waving signs, and being kept back by people in uniform. Hiccup could see a few of them carrying idols and effigies of Stark's armor, one stained with blood, another looking bizarrely disproportionate, with a strange mask, the jaw oddly curved. Another—he saw with a shock—was carrying an effigy of _him, _but his hands were stained with blood.

Hiccup turned towards Stark, swallowed and asked, "Didn't you say we wouldn't see crowds here?"

"I was expecting the paparazzi. Not a Humans First! welcoming committee," Stark said.

Nikki scoffed at his elbow. "I _hate_ these guys…"

"Unfortunately, it's the American right to protest," Emily said.

"But they're like Westboro, but on steroids!" Nikki complained.

Hiccup wasn't sure who or what Westboro was, and he wasn't about to take a guess as to what steroids were, but he had to agree with Nikki. He was beginning to dislike these particular moderners himself. But their 'protesting,' he'd been so used to people going to war with him over the livelihood that he had built for himself and his people, that he didn't want to admit out loud that this _protesting_ was a fresh, albeit unsettling change. That in mind, he wondered just how these modern humans would react to his lifestyle and whether or not they would go to war over it if… when he frees his people from the Bifrost.

One of the men in uniform—his jacket reading NYPD—came up to them and nodded respectfully to Stark. "Sorry, sir, but they got a permit to protest and everything. We've kept them back from interfering with traffic, but..."

He trailed off as Stark held up his hand. "Yeah. I got it." He seemed to be thinking, and Hiccup kept glancing out the window at the effigy of himself. They'd gotten the armor mostly right, with his emblems and everything... but the bloodstains that Hela had left were instead fresh and bright. And the expression...

He shivered.

Was that how they saw him? The look on the idol reminded him of Dagur's less sane and stable moments.

Stark turned to Thor. "That crowd is too big to have been checked for security."

Thor nodded. "I was thinking the same."

"All right." He turned and looked at the uniformed man. "All right. Change of plans. Make a big show of trying to get the limo through but let them block it and chase it off. We're taking a helicopter up to Avengers HQ on the downlow."

The uniformed guard nodded. "Got it. I'll pass the word."

A bunch of things happened quickly at that point, most of them flying over Hiccup's head. They turned around and went back into the airport, and a few minutes later, they were walking out onto the vast paved area where the aircraft took off and landed.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Some of those protesters might have been carrying heavy weapons—hidden in those effigies, for example—that could injure or kill you," Nickolai explained patiently. "So we're leaving via a different aircraft for the trip to the Avengers' Headquarters." He nodded towards a bizarre machine sitting on the pavement. "That one."

Hiccup eyed it. It was egg-shaped, with four narrow wings above it, set like a windmill, and another arm extending... back?, from the windows where he could see a pilot sitting.

He was just about to ask how it worked with the strange wings when they began to spin with a high-pitched whine, and the wind picked up, in a way that made him oddly homesick.

A few minutes later, they were aboard the 'helicopter'; Hiccup put the oddly leathery earmuffs over his head that cut out most of the noise, and then they took off.

"We've got a direct flight chartered," the pilot said through the earmuffs. "We just need to avoid Rikers Island and follow the Harlem up to the Hudson. Have you there in about an hour."

Emily coughed. "Best commute through the City I've ever had."

"Yeah, an hour from La Guardia might get you to my place. Maybe," Nikki added, and then she pulled Hiccup over to the window as the airport started to shrink underneath them. "Look!"

Hiccup looked, and now that they were both lower and moving much more slowly, Hiccup could _see._

And it took his breath away.

The city glowed with 'millions' of lights, outlining the shapes of buildings and streets in dozens of brilliant colors. A bright blue spire topped with a red light glowed in the middle distance, which Nikki identified as the Empire State Building. Still more lights glittered, describing gentle arcs and strong lines across the river.

Nikki began pointing out sights to him, even as she bemoaned the fact that they were too far away to see some of the greatest marvels her home had to offer.

"Okay, we're over the East River... That's the Hell Gate Bridge, that's the Kennedy Bridge..." she motioned towards two grand structures below, "and that's Harlem over there," she indicated a broad stretch of glittering buildings on their left as the helicopter flew high over the waters of the river below.

Hiccup could only watch in awe.

The city was... _alive._ Even now, well after midnight, vehicles filled the streets, and he could even see individual people on the sidewalks, in the parks—even some on the high rooftops!

The contrast with Berk...

He remembered that first flight with Astrid, and seeing the Bifr... seeing what he'd thought was the Bifrost, and seeing the lights of their home from above, from Toothless's back...

That had been a beautiful, inspiring moment, and one that he still drew strength from, for more than one reason.

But at least when it came to the fires of his long-lost home that moment seemed paltry and insignificant compared to the magnificence before him.

His eyes welled up with tears and he swore to himself that he'd be able to share this view with Astrid and Toothless as well. They would race down through the metal and glass canyons of these massive buildings, he'd feed Toothless chocolate and laugh at the face his bud would make, and maybe even share this 'shawarma' food with them as well.

He took a deep breath and, with the back of his arm, wiped away the tears.

Then he jumped a little as Stark's voice came through the earmuffs. "Hey, Wonder Boy. Toggle on 'Location Overlay'; I think you'll like it."

Quirking an eyebrow, Hiccup fiddled with his glasses for a moment, finding the 'icon' and activating it.

Then he gasped.

His glasses displayed the gaps of the city, as if overlain with a very fine gridwork of wires, and little flags rose from various buildings, giving names and descriptions. The bridges below had names, as did the streets...

But then he turned it back off. With a smile, he nodded towards Nikki. "Thanks, but I've got a local guide."

Nikki grinned, and continued pointing out interesting places that she knew.

For Hiccup, it was an overwhelming deluge of sight and light and the knowledge that _men had built this._ It had taken centuries, years that he'd slept through, but there were buildings here—_small_ ones, compared to the largest!—with more people sheltering behind their walls than lived in all of Berk. There were libraries and hospitals and great stadiums for the playing of sports, and all of it, _all of it,_ had been made by the hands of man.

Yes, the gods of Asgard were powerful, but he could see now why they had sought refuge on Midgard in the aftermath of whatever cataclysm Hela had unleashed on them.

The people at the entrance to the airport, and at the museum of Oslo... they were terrible, to be sure, but seeing the greatness of what was one of the largest cities in the world spread out before him was a pointed rebuttal to the thought that this future world was all bad.

They reached the main river and continued north along the Hudson, and to the south, Nikki pointed out a massive bridge that spanned the river, the 'George Washington,' she proudly told him.

And on and on and on the city lights went, a vast hive of humanity, the greatest working Hiccup could ever have conceived of. No. An even greater working. He'd had dreams of making Berk into a home and haven for any that wished to come, but he never could have conceived of something like _this._

Well.

He was just going to have to dream bigger, then. Make his home into something worthy of his people and the ones he loved.

As they left the city behind, he asked, "So... isn't my sword there?"

"Somewhere under it," Stark commented. "And Friday is doing a comprehensive search on the Hydra archives to find out where, how it's defended, and what else might be there. Don't worry, Wonder Boy. We'll get it. But there's no reason to rush half-cocked. Not this time."

"But—"

"Look. Assuming Heimdall was telling the truth about it being only 'months' for them, we could take the next six months to do this and for them it'll be less time than we spent getting here from Oslo," Stark said flatly, and then softened his tone. "I get that you want to get back with them. For you, it's been a week and it still hurts. I get that. But a couple of days for us will be only a few minutes for them. We can do this right."

Hiccup thought about it. The "time dilation" was a hard concept to wrap his mind around, even after they'd discussed it at length on the flight over, but, slowly, he nodded. "All right."

With that, he settled in, flipped on _Location Overlay,_ and watched the small cities and towns north of New York City fly past.

True to the pilot's word, less than an hour or so later, they were making ready to land at a large complex of buildings, a large stylized A marking the tops of the structures, looking like it had been shot by an arrow—the sigil of the Avengers, he'd been told, just like how Berk's skull marked his tribe. Some things didn't change, it seemed.

Landing was uneventful, but as the wind from the helicopter died down, a tall redheaded woman marched forward, her body language upset. Hiccup was strongly reminded of Astrid in her less forgiving moods, and next to him Stark seemed to be having similar thoughts.

"Uh oh."

* * *

AN: To recap from a couple of chapters ago, Resurrection is currently undergoing a hiatus to build another buffer. So please, be patient until then. Thank you.


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